


Cicada Shells, Temporal Things

by devicing



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Coming of Age, Dæmons, His Dark Materials AU, Historical AU—Meiji Restoration/Second Industrial Revolution, M/M, language (use of contextual slurs), slooooooow burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-04-20
Updated: 2018-05-08
Packaged: 2019-04-24 23:23:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 36,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14365932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/devicing/pseuds/devicing
Summary: The scene is this: late April. Rain-thick breeze through cracked open windows. He and Oikawa both resting on opposite sides of the dormitory room, admitting truths into the darkness that always felt safe outside of daylight.‘It’s too claustrophobic here, Iwa-chan,’ Oikawa had said then in a voice that had tried so hard to be knife sharp and sure. It was too bad that Hajime always knew where to find the cracks.‘Not the room,’ he had continued, breathing his response like a secret. ‘Yokohama. Nippon. It’s stifling. I can’t stay here forever. I'm so much more than just this.’—Iwaizumi Hajime and Oikawa Tooru—across the globe, throughout the years.





	1. 1885 〜 1893

**Author's Note:**

> So I have a very bad habit of spinning together convoluted AUs in agonizing detail, only to turn into a coward when it comes to actually writing, finishing, and posting them. That’s probably why this incredibly self-indulgent AU has been in the works for a molasses-slow three years now. After a lot of time and care, however, I think this labor of love is finally ready to be out of my hands (even if I've still got ~1/4 more left to write).
> 
> If you don’t know the His Dark Materials universe (aka the Golden Compass Trilogy & related books) but you still want to try this fic out, I would suggest reading up on [dæmons](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C3%A6mon_\(His_Dark_Materials\)), checking out the [HDM World Map](http://hdm.wikia.com/wiki/Lyra%27s_world), and reading up on the history of [Yokohama during the Meiji Restoration](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yokohama#Meiji_and_Taisho_Periods_\(1868%E2%80%931923\)). There were a lot of liberties taken when expanding Philip Pullman’s world to Japan for some parts of the story and a lot of work put into researching as a result. I hope it shows!

 

 

 

_You are barely a year old when you learn your hands were made for discovery._

 

 

 

“ _Melete_ ,” Ryohaku says one mild June evening, just as the cicada songs reach their natural crescendo.

Hajime, lounging in his mother’s lap, does not glance up from where his fingers eagerly dodge the playful nips from his gosling dæmon waddling before him, but his mother hears. She turns to her dæmon in surprise. “Come again?”

Ryohaku gives a soft, exasperated bleat. “Think of it as a birthday gift to the two of them. He’s going to have to call her something sooner or later, whenever he learns to stop babbling nonsense.”

Masako’s hand comes up almost instinctively to comb through her boy’s thick, black hair at the mention. “Are you sure that was a name?” she asks, only half joking.

Ryohaku chuffs, his wispy white whiskers blowing about. “You have the right to name your kind whatever you like just as I have the right to name mine whatever I like,” he says. Then he rises up onto all fours and hops down from the _engawa_ in one graceful leap. His hooves click against the pebbles as he circles around and rests his head on the wooden floor boards at her feet. A short huff of breath from his nose catches the downy fluff and the attention of the gosling dæmon, who waddles away from her human’s plump fingers to investigate.

Hajime, ever the fussy child, squirms at the loss of his playmate. His pudgy hands reach out and a noise of protest gurgles out from his throat. He fights against his mother’s arms with all the strength his small arms can manage, babbling nonsense all the while. “Now look what you’ve done,” Masako chides her dæmon, gently knocking one of his horns with the hand not stubbornly wrapped around Hajime’s middle. She struggles to hold the boy to her chest. It’s not separation from his dæmon that’s sent him into a fuss, she reminds herself, just her son being stubborn as usual. “Hajime, please,” she asks of him.

As the gosling pecks delightedly at his nose, Ryohaku manages a short laugh. “Let the boy go, Masako. You’re far too protective of him.”

“I most certainly am not,” she replies. With two hands she hoists her son back into the dip of her thighs. Hajime gnaws on her hand in defiance.

“Fine. Then let him go,” he says, like a challenge.

“No,” she states firmly. “That is a long drop for a child his size and I won’t risk it.”

Ryohaku eyes her incredulously. “Then why bring him out here at all?”

“Because. It’s a lovely day out.” And it is. The fading sunlight is dappled through a canopy of maples and the rice stalks sway in the warm June breeze. She breathes it in and explains, “He was at my back all afternoon while I was at the loom and you know how stuffy the workroom is. He needed the fresh air.”

“What he needs, Masako,” Ryouhaku says, voice even and the exact patronizing tone she despises so much, “is to be left to his own accord.”

Her lips purse together as she tries to meet his gaze in defiance, but goats are such stubborn creatures, and her dæmon always manages to come out on top in their arguments. She yields, ducking her head down to avoid his knowing stare. How irritating it can sometimes be to have a creature that knows her so well.

“He’ll hurt himself,” she admits softly into the crown of her boy’s head a moment later.

Ryohaku’s voice is gentle when he speaks. “Let him. He will learn.”

Masako peeks up over the dusting of black hair and she looks to the gosling, Hajime’s small, fragile dæmon. Unfettered, the little thing stumbles along the _engawa’s_ edge, chasing the wet shimmer of her serow dæmon’s nose back and forth with reckless abandon. Back and forth, back and forth, until feet two-sizes too large for her tiny body snag on a gap in the wood and send her tumbling over the side.

The poor thing hits the ground with a small, indignant squawk.

“Ryo!” Masako is on her knees in an instant. With her writhing son clutched to her breast, she shimmies over to the edge, heart aflutter with anxiety.

Of course the little thing is fine, she discovers with immediate relief. By the time she peers over to check, the little bird has already righted herself back up onto her two enormous feet and is dancing atop Ryohaku’s hooves like nothing had happened

The breath rushes out of her on a long, exasperated sigh. She leans against the support beam next to her. “Ryo, if this is what you call a successful argument, I beg to differ.” Masako points a finger at the gosling’s lopsided waddle.

“I told you they might get hurt,” he replies. “But what I’m trying to convince you is that it is perfectly alright for that to happen. They have to learn, and you cannot hover around them as they do.”

“But…,” she pauses, searching for the words she wants to say. “I just want to make sure he’s safe.”

“That’s what she’s there for.” Ryohaku sidles close to her, butting his horns gently into the side of her leg. “Just as I was here for you.”

She relinquishes one hand from Hajime’s stomach to stroke the base of her dæmon’s short, gnarled horn, just as she always does. If only for this moment—while it is just her, her son, and her faithful dæmon—she’ll allow herself to be weak. “Will she be enough?” The small quake is more evident in her voice than she’d like.

“I don’t know why you think I have all of the answers, Masako,” Ryohaku says, angling his head further into her touch. “You’ll just have to trust that she will be.”

Silence falls between them. She continues rubbing slow, steady circles into her dæmon’s fur as her son mouths at her knuckles. The cicadas continue to sing off in the distance. At her feet, the gosling makes small stilted peeps of protest, too short to hop back up to the ledge.

“All right,” she murmurs into Hajime’s hair. “All right.”

Her hands have always been strong, yet they have never felt as weak as they do lowering her son over the _engawa’s_ edge to the pebble path below.

Hajime totters on unsure legs as he starts off. One step, then two. With confidence overflowing he charges ahead. It takes only a moment before he lands on unsure footing, sways, and plops down onto his rump. Her hands twitch to reach out for him, but Ryohaku fixes her with a steady look. _Wait_ , he seems to tell her. _Let him do this for himself_.

With a petulant glare in his direction, she sinks back onto her calves, hands folded, white knuckled, across the tops of her thighs. Hajime’s face is scrunched up (not unlike her own), wobbling right on the verge of a fit, but the tears never fall. Slowly but surely, he pushes himself into a proper crouching position with his small pudgy hands. He plants them firmly in the dirt and moves to make his stand. Still, he misjudges his own balance, and on the third purposeful rock forward, he tips back towards the ground.

In an instant, however, his dæmon shifts at his side. Masako blinks and the gosling is no more. In its place is an animal, and one she instantly recognizes: a _Karafuto-ken_. Her father’s dæmon had been the same.

 _Ancestral kami,_ she thinks to herself with a small smile.

The crown of the dæmon’s canine head is pressed comically up against her boy’s backside to the point where her eyes are barely visible under the fur flattened down over them. Her legs bow at odd angles to keep him upright, but she stays poised and at the ready until Hajime rights himself back to standing. Soon he steadies his legs underneath himself, and when the dæmon seems pleased with his balance, she sidles up beside him, large in comparison though she’s still just a pup herself.

There is wonder in Hajime’s eyes when he looks at her. He reaches for her face and the dæmon gently mouths at his fingers. He squeals in delight. With a hand threaded into in the scruff of her neck, he starts off again. Her tail flops back and forth like a rudder behind them as they make their way into the grass.

“So…,” Masako starts as Ryohaku leaps back onto the _engawa_. “Me… _Mere_ …”

“Melete,” he finishes for her, pronunciation gliding off his tongue like silk.

“Did you have to choose something so difficult to pronounce?”

His hooves click against the hardwood as he settles down beside her. “I am afraid I didn’t have much choice in the matter. The name came to me and felt right.”

Masako hums thoughtfully. “Is that how it goes?”

“Once again you assume I have all of the answers, Masako.” He gives an exasperated sigh and lets his head fall heavily across her thighs.

She lets the name roll around in her mouth, as if tasting it, before she gives it another go. “ _Melete_.”

It does sound right, even if her pronunciation is still all wrong.

“She’ll be strong. And so will he.” Ryohaku’s eyes grow distant. The light catches the brown of them warmly. “Though whether it will be strength of body, will, or character I’m not yet sure.”

“Hm,” her hand strokes along his horn and down his neck. “I’d like to think all three.”

She watches as Hajime takes a lonely cicada in his hand. It sings for him, and Masako’s heart flutters along with it.

As it takes flight from Hajime’s outstretched palms and wheels off into the distance, his eyes grow wide with discovery. At his side, Melete mirrors the expression, and Masako’s chest feels ready to burst with pride.

 

Melete / ˈmɛlᵻtiː / (Μελέτη)

one of the three original (Boeotian) muses before the Nine Olympian Muses were founded; the Muse of Meditation, Thought, Practice, and Exercise

 

 

 

 

_You are eight years old when your hands discover him._

 

 

 

Mel’s wings are a refreshing streak of azure against an otherwise grey sky.

It’s late morning and while the sun hasn’t shown its face, the humidity already clings to Hajime’s body uncomfortably. He tracks her small body as it dips and darts from branch to branch above him, her eyes just as keen and sharp as his own.

He’s freshly eight years old, and this is the first morning without rain in the week that it’s been since his birthday. Today he’s out to prove himself. The small satchel tied at his side—a gift from his grandmother—rustles with freshly-caught game.

Hajime chews his lip, trying to tamp down his bubbling glee. He’s a hunter and hunters have to learn how not to give themselves away when on the prowl. That means absolutely no noise. At least, that’s what his grandmother had told him.

He doesn’t have to wait for long. Above him Mel gives a small whistle, his signal to leap into action. So he does. At the arc of his jump he stretches his hands forward, right below the beacon of her fluttering wings. His knees hit the soggy ground first, then his cupped hands. The mud squelches up thickly between his fingers, but through it he can feel a slick hard shell and a long, pointed tusk pressed up against his thumb

A quick bubble of laughter bursts out of him as he brandishes the rhinoceros beetle up to the sky. “Mel, look! Look at it!”

She sing-songs above him. “I’ve already seen it, you goon. You don’t have to– hey, stop that!” She expertly swoops out of the reach of his mud-slicked hands. “How many does that make, anyway?”

Hajime stops half way through sloughing the mud from his hands onto his pant legs and gapes at her. Suddenly that seems like a much more important task. He offers the beetle up to Mel, who cautiously takes it between her talons, and then he uses both hands to untie the finicky knot around his belt loop. They make their way over to a small clearing and he sits himself down crosslegged in the one dray patch of dirt at the center. His legs make the walls of his small arena and he tips the bag over to let the rest of his captives loose.

One lizard, three crickets, a jewel beetle, and now one very large rhinoceros beetle. They idly scurry through the dirt as he counts them, mouthing their number as he goes. Mel swoops down to rest atop his head. He feels her beak lightly tap his crown as she counts along with him.

“It’s a big one, huh?” she says. Hajime looks back at their new catch. The rhinoceros beetle bowls over one of the crickets in its attempt to climb the end of his pant leg.

“The biggest one I’ve ever seen,” he agrees. He reaches out with a finger and tips the thing off of his kneecap. It hits the ground with a soft thump and its legs wave uselessly in the air. “Probably the biggest one ever.”

“Ever?” Mel hops down onto his shoulder and then down the length of his arm. “I doubt it.”

“Nuh-uh. Have you ever seen bigger?”

“Well have you?” she retorts tartly. Her long thick beak noses one of the crickets into flight.

“Mel!” Hajime claps his hands over it quickly so as not to lose it. He glares at her. “Stop it.”

“Stop what?” She says as she not-so-innocently noses the jewel beetle next.

“No, that one’s special!” He abandons the cricket to hide the little iridescent beetle next. He snaps at her hotly, “They’re all special. If you want to eat something go find your own.”

She clicks her large kingfisher beak irritably. “I should be able to eat them if I want! They were _mine_ first, after all.”

The tips of his ears go instantly hot. He masks the humiliation with a scowl. “I thought we were a team, Mel,” he says, embarrassed at how watery his voice suddenly sounds.

Feeling peevish, he wipes the beginning of hot tears away with the back of his arm and begins to stuff their bounty back into his bag. Stupid Mel. It wasn’t _just_ _her_ doing all the work. He’d done his share too. He’d found the lizard all by himself, hadn’t he? He _had_.

Mel hops down from his leg when he angrily pushes himself up to standing, then bounces about at his feet with her head cocked to the side. “Hajime?” Her voice is a pitiful chirp as he hurried ties the bag back to his frayed belt-loop. “Hajime, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it like that. We _are_ a team. I’ll find my own crickets to eat, okay?”

But Hajime is a stubborn little boy on a mission, and that mission is to prove that he can do this _without_ her help. He doesn’t need her pity. He’ll catch something before she can steal the glory for herself. He’ll catch something even _better_ than anything she’s already ever found.

Somewhere not too far off, the tell-tale chirrup of a seasonably-early cicada pierces the air.

Hajime perks up. That’ll do.

Hands clenched in fists at his sides, he storms off towards the direction of the sound. His brow is a deep furrow and his lips a tight line. Somewhere behind him he hears the flutter of wings smooth out into the sound of paws padding through the grass, but he refuses to look back at his dæmon in curiosity. Stupid, difficult Mel.

The _min-min_ hum of the cicada grows closer and fuels his drive further.

He’s never been this far out into this side of the forest before. Somewhere off to his left the trees look as though they’re thinning out, so he’s sure the city must not be too far off that way. He screws up his nose and continues on his way, not nearly curious enough about the fancy foreign estates his mother is always going on about with the other women in the neighborhood to steer him off his course. Not with the cicada singing so sweetly into the damp summer air, anyway.

He walks and walks, focusing all of his attention on tracking the sound. If Mel has something to say, she keeps it to herself. Even if he is starting to feel guilty for getting angry with her, he doesn’t want to be the first one to speak. Iwaizumis are so very stubborn, after all. At least, that’s what his grandmother is always saying, anyway. So he stomps along and tries not to think too much about the soft wet nose that occasionally prods at his calves.

The silence between him and Mel is only broken by a sudden loud shriek somewhere further up ahead.

Hajime reels to a stop as a shiver runs down his spine. He’s sure if he were to look down he’d see the fanned, angry crest of Mel’s hackles running up along her neck, but there’s no time for that. Not when he’s already dashing off towards the sound without a moment’s hesitation.

The cicada’s soft _min-min_ melody fades into the distance.

The further he runs, the more the forest begins to thin. He can just see the tips of wooden shingles and the occasional telephone pole peeking up over the crest of the hill where the tree-line ends. _Too far, too far_ a small voice in his head insists, the one that remembers too well the scolding punishment he’ll get from his mother if she ever finds out about this, but another wailing cry pierces the air and it’s _close_.

Hajime lifts his head to scan the trees and there, just up ahead. Stalking along at the base of a towering camphor tree is a large cat of some kind, black and sleek with its belly pressed low to the ground. Hajime blinks and prepares to step back but, no, now it’s a weasel, darting over and under the prominent roots weaving themselves through the ground. He shakes his head and starts to close the the distance. In an instant, the weasel has shifted and taken flight, its speckled brown hawk wings beating at the air and carrying it into the sea of leaves above. Hajime watches with cautious wonder as the dæmon flickers between more and more animals, more than he can name.

“Hello?” he calls out, carefully walking up along one of the camphor’s gnarled roots. Above him, the green winged _mejiro_ nosedives towards a low-hanging branch and lands as a tawny brown squirrel.

“Hey!” he tries again, but the squirrel just runs circles around the branch. A moment later it elongates into the body of a thick, yellow snake.

Mel’s cold nose presses into the curve of his palm and he looks down at her. Her watery boar eyes follow the long line of the other dæmon’s body. “She’s scared,” she murmurs. Her haunches jump sympathetically, as though she’ll shift any second to match. “Where’s the rest of her?”

Hajime cocks his head in thought. Naturally, if there’s a dæmon there has to be a human not too far off. By the way the poor thing practically clings to the tree like a lifeline, his best guess is that that someone is up in the tree. The only question is where.

“Hey!” Hajime stomps over to the low branch where the now-macaque nervously fidgets with her fingers. She jolts and turns her wide, feverish eyes on him and he almost steps back at the fierceness of them. Mel pushes past his legs and shifts between him and the foreign dæmon, pulling herself to full height on her hind legs with her forepaws balanced on the branch between them. The bearlike stature of the _Karafuto-ken_ is an iron wall between him and the dæmon.

The macaque’s eyes flit between them before she reaches out with one long fingered hand and circles it around one of Mel’s paws. Mel, caught unaware, jolts but stands firm.

Then the macaque starts to speak. At least, he assumes it’s speaking to him, only Hajime can’t seem to make sense of the words. It’s a sound like nothing he has ever heard before, all guttural consonants and loopy vowels. Too… foreign. The only thing he really understands is the shrill panic in her voice.

She pauses, looking up from where her paws have been worrying the fur of Mel’s wrist, and gazes at him imploringly. He blinks back at her over the flat plane of Mel’s head. “I’m sorry,” he tries, “but I don’t…“

Then, somewhere above them a plaintive cry wails out through the canopy. “ _Fi!_ ”

The macaque startles, dropping Mel’s paw without a care. In an instant she’s back to the large, black cat form from before. Her powerful claws dig deep into the bark and propel her up the sloping trunk in bounding leaps.

Hajime’s mouth smooths out into a thin line. With all the bravery an eight year old can muster, he hoists himself up onto the nearest branch and starts to climb.

He makes it almost a meter before he feels a snag in his pant leg. Mel has a paw neatly tucked into the rolled-up cuff. “Hajime, no, it’s dangerous.”

His lower lip juts out as he hikes his other leg up for better purchase. “I’ll be fine.”

“You could fall. You probably _will_ fall, knowing you.”

He considers the possibility for a moment, but only that. Before he can think too long on it, he sends her a steady grin. “You’ll just catch me, right? Or carry me back. We’re a team, aren’t we?”

Mel gazes up at him with wide brown eyes before his sort-of apology hits. The recognition dawns on her in stages: first her tail starts to flutter, followed by a bout of excited prancing around the base of the tree. “Right!” she exclaims, practically bounding about in her excitement. On the crest of one, enthusiastic jump, she shifts into a sleek black hawk and soars up behind him. The backs of her talons gently knock his head as she passes by. Hajime grins and sets off to meet her challenge.

It takes three minutes and four almost-falls before Hajime makes it to where the tugging sensation of his and Mel’s bond goes slack. She lands neatly on his shoulder as he reaches a sturdy branch and when he looks up he can see that there’s a hollow in the tree’s thick trunk only a short distance away. At the brim there’s a bird—a dove of some sort—anxiously strutting back and forth, feathers’s fluffed up in quite a state. When Hajime tilts his head and peers just right, he can see the toe of a shoe peeking out over the edge.

Nodding to steel himself, he pulls his body the rest of the way over to the large branch beside the hole and straddles it with ease.

He gazes down into the hollow. Wide, shimmery eyes gaze back at him.

The boy scrunched together in there can’t be much older than him, if he’s even older at all. His knees are knocked together awkwardly in the cramped space of the nook and his arms are poised at either side of his face. The heels of his palms are damp with salty tears and the barest hints of dried blood. Snot drips from his nose and oozes over his wobbling upper lip. His cheeks are ruddy and wet, but his glare is hot where it fixes on Hajime.

The boy’s eyebrows pull together and he yells something in Hajime’s direction, but just like with the dæmon before, everything he says is shaped around all the wrong sounds.

Hajime tilts his head and crosses his arms. He may not know the words, but the tone the boy uses is all too familiar. Something in the way his bottom lip juts out and fresh tears spill down his cheeks, all the while his glare doesn’t fade translates perfectly.

When the boy lashes out, Hajime doesn’t flinch. When he kicks at Hajime weakly, Hajime lets his knee take the blow, unflappable. The dove glances at him anxiously, but he won’t shrink back.

Yeah, he knows this all too well. He knows what shame tastes like, after all. He knows how it runs sour at the back of your throat and hot in the hollow of your belly.

Iwaizumis are so very stubborn, after all.

It doesn’t take long for the boy’s fit to subside. His legs stop flailing, his shoulders sink, and his chin droops down to his chest. Tears roll fat down his flushed cheeks and he refuses to meet Hajime’s eye. He goes quiet and hunches back, as if trying to disappear back into the thick bark of the tree.

Hajime rubs his hand idly over the sore spot on his knee and says, dryly and more to himself than anything, “You finished?”

The boy’s eyes flicker over to him and his nose crinkles. “No,” he tartly replies.

Hajime scowls back at him out of habit before a thought hits him.

“Hey, you _do_ speak Nipponese!” he blurts out, leaning forward and just over the rim of the hole. In the dark shade of the hollow, the boy’s fair skin and chestnut hair had easily passed as foreign, but maybe that was just the fluid pronunciation of _whatever_ that all had been coloring Hajime’s judgement.

The boy tilts his chin up and looks down the bridge of his nose at him. “Of _course_ I do. I’m not an idiot.” He drags the last word out on one long, sarcastic note and Hajime feels his hackles rising again, but for a completely different reason.

He’s patient, but not _that_ patient. Hajime glares down at the boy for a long moment, then he shifts to lower himself from his seat on the branch.

Eyes going comically wide, the boy launches himself forward. “Wait, don’t go!” he exclaims, head poking out from the hole. His dæmon narrowly dodges his hand as it reaches out to latch onto Hajime’s wrist.

Hajime wrinkles his nose and attempts to shake him off. “Ugh, gross,” he says as the snot slides slickly over his skin. 

“No!” the boy cries, only this time he’s _actually_ crying again. The word drags out of him on a long, pitiful whine.

“Tooru,” the dove coos, shifting into the form of a rabbit and settling herself in the curve of his lap. 

Hajime lowers himself back onto his perch. “Tooru, huh?”

The boy’s body goes slack and he nods clumsily. His hand remains on Hajime’s arm, mucus and all. His voice is small when he asks, “What’s yours?”

“Hajime,” he replies. “What are you doing up here?”

Tooru’s expression shutters in a second as the red in his cheeks blooms again. “Nothing.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I mean it!”

“Sure.”

Tooru’s cheeks balloon out as he pouts. “You’re very rude, you know that?”

Hajime cocks one eyebrow. “That’s still not an answer.”

“Well maybe now I don’t want to give you one!” 

From his lap, the rabbit pipes up, “He got himself stuck up here and can’t climb down.”

“Fi!” Tooru squawks, shoving his hands into his lap to clamp over her tiny mouth. She wiggles in protest before shifting into the form of a thick, rotund sea creature of some sort. Her tail flops out of the hole and Tooru wheezes under her weight.

“Fi?” Hajime asks, ignoring Tooru’s indignant squealing. The sound sits a bit awkwardly on his tongue. 

The dæmon’s face peeks out over the curve of her body. “ _Fiorenza_ ,” she says lightly, blinking her big, watery eyes at him. Her whiskers twitch as she snorts.

Hajime tries the name a couple of times as he watches Tooru attempt to shove her off (hands finding no traction on her slick fur), but he can’t make it sound quite right. 

Tooru somehow manages to push the bulk of his dæmon out of the hole, but as she slides over the edge she shifts back into a rabbit. He sends her a nasty glare before he turns to Hajime, or more specifically the dæmon still perched on his shoulder. The glare easily melts away into an expression of eager curiosity. “What’s her name?”

Hajime opens his mouth, but Mel beats him to it. “Melete,” she says, preening under the attention.

Tooru’s eyes are wide saucers as he gazes at her. “ _Melete_ ,” he repeats, smiling, and the name slides off of his tongue like butter. 

Hajime’s jealousy prickles under his skin. It had taken him _forever_ to get the pronunciation down correctly, and he’d had _years_ to practice. “Why’d you come up here anyway if you couldn’t get down?”

Across from him, Tooru’s mouth clicks shut and the embarrassed hunch to his shoulders returns. “It’s not like I _can’t_ get down,” he grouses. “I just don’t want to, that’s all.”

The tear stains on his cheeks say otherwise, but arguing that point is probably a lost cause. Hajime leans back against the upward curve of the branch and crosses his arms. His brows screw together in thought. “Okay. Did you do something wrong? Are you hiding from someone?”

Tooru’s scowl deepens and his dæmon shifts into a small, prickly rodent of some kind in his lap. The barbs, real and metaphorical, are visible on both of them. “A stupid ship touched down in the harbor today,” he says, like it’s the answer to a puzzle too obvious to even give consideration.

But Hajime has never seen the port, or at least he’s never seen more than the silk-shop window’s tiny sliver of ocean, so this answer goes over his head completely. “Well I don’t think boats can come all the way up here,” he offers. “Or into trees.”

Tooru huffs out a long, dramatic sigh, tossing his arms over his head. “Of _course_ a dumb ol’ regular boat can’t, but the _airships_ can!”

That stops Hajime’s line of questioning dead in its tracks. His eyes go wide like saucers. “There’s an airship in town today?” he demands, leaning forward towards the lip of the hollow.

For all the enthusiasm Hajime feels blossoming in his own chest, Tooru looks utterly sour in comparison. “Not here. They never come out to _Noge_. It’s in the city.”

Well that’s certainly the truth. Hajime is only eight years old and he can count the times he’s seen an airship stop by Yokohama on one hand. The last time had to have been almost a year and a half ago. He almost can’t believe it. 

It sounds too good to be true, so he says as much. “You’re lying. I would have heard it flying overhead.”

Tooru rolls his eyes at him in the most overstated manner. “No, because it was raining yesterday. It landed over on the other side of the bay near Tokyo and sailed in this morning.”

Hajime feels his face split in a grin. “They can go on the water too?” he whispers, awestruck. On his shoulder, Melete’s talons excitedly pick at the fabric of his shirt. To think, an _airship_ in town, so close to his birthday. The new rucksack at his side already pales in comparison to the sheer number of oddities his mother might be bringing back from the city for him.

In fact, why is he wasting his time in the forest when he could be getting a better look at the ship? Or getting an extra gift from his mother? And for that matter, why would Tooru be here if he _knew_ the ship was in town? 

The question spills out of him in a breathless rush, but Tooru only shrinks back further into the hole, as defensive and prickly as his tiny dæmon. “I don’t _wanna_ go _,_ ” he whines. His head knocks against the back of the hollow. “Every time they come in Father drags us off to the docks with him. He says it’s ‘good practice’ but I know he just wants to show Satsuki and me off to the fishermen and traders.”

Hajime blinks. “Show you off?” he asks, but Tooru barrels on. 

“All he wants is more customers and I’m tired of being his dumb parrot.” His hands thud against the hollow walls of the hole. “He already _has_ a parrot! His stupid _dæmon’s_ a parrot!”

Hajime doesn’t even know what a parrot is, but he’s too stunned by Tooru’s raving outburst to dwell on it.

“I never get to have any fun there and the clothes Mother always puts me in are _stupid_ and _itchy_ and it’s _no_ _fair_! It was bad enough in Dejima _,_ but now I have to do it all over again here in stupid Yokohama! What’s next, huh? Is he going to ship us off all the way to Amsterdam next time? I won’t go, not after _Pieter_ said—” 

Tooru falls back into that strange foreign tongue, smooth as silk, at this point. All sliding vowels and nasally stops so backwards from what Hajime’s used to. It’s as fascinating as it is frustrating. The transition back to Nipponese is just as smooth in execution, even if Hajime has found himself utterly lost in the topic at hand. “—but I don’t _want_ to be taken by the Gobblers so I’m not gonna let them take me on their stupid ship and I’m not gonna go with Father to the city and I’m _not_ going to come down from this tree until the stupid ship is gone!”

In the aftermath of his rant, Tooru pants and gasps and tries to choke back the hot, angry tears that have started to form at the corners of his eyes. They fall anyway. Fiorenza sits patiently in his lap, her little pink tongue darting out to lick the salty spatter from the backs of his hands. 

Hajime watches him cooly, but there’s something weird stirring in his chest. 

This kid is so loud and expressive _,_ it’s weird _._ He’s harsh outbursts of anger and also bright, easy curiosity. He’s a firecracker just as much as he is a shrinking daisy. He is annoying and yet he is fascinating. The airship is waiting out there in the port just beyond _Noge_ , but it’s almost like Hajime already has his own strange little marvel right here. 

With a start, he realizes that maybe he wants to know more about this snotty, funny-tongued kid. Maybe more than he wants to know about the airships.

He waits for the gasping sobs to calm down, then he reaches to his side and carefully unties the satchel from his waist. Mel leans down to help pry the knot open with her long beak, the two of them coming together like perfectly-slotted cogs, and the bag slides open. Hajime scooches forward on the branch until he’s pressed to the lip of the hole. He holds the bag out. 

“Wanna see the bugs we caught today?” he asks bluntly, face neutral as he stares Tooru down. He tells himself that he doesn’t really care what the boy thinks, but he also _does_. Weirdly enough, he wants this kid’s approval.

Tooru’s nose wrinkles up. “That’s gross.”

Hajime eyes the trail of mucus dripping from Tooru’s nose and the dirt smears across almost every open patch of skin. “ _You’re_ gross.” Once again, he jostles the bag invitingly under that snotty nose. 

Tooru’s lips purse together and he looks at Hajime through wetly-clumped eyelashes. Hajime stares back at him. “Yeah, okay,” he acquiesces. He hesitantly lowers one finger into the bag and his face twists into something caught between wary apprehension and barely-there excitement.

When he pulls it back, the rhinoceros beetle sits proudly along the ridge of his knuckles. Tooru’s eyes shine, but this time it’s not from tears. When he grins at Hajime, Hajime can’t fight the smile that stretches wide and almost painfully across his own face. 

The cicada is long forgotten. Only its song on the wind remains.

 

Fiorenza / fi:ɔ: ˈ renzʌ

from the Latin name _Florentius_ or the feminine form _Florentia,_ which were derived from _florens_ “Prosperous, Flourishing”

 

 

 

_You are nine years and you learn that there are things in this world that your hands were not meant to reach for._

 

 

 

The grass in the fields behind Tooru’s house only comes up to Hajime’s shoulders these days. To him, it’s a momentous occasion. One he’d love to brag about, but one he’ll ultimately save lording over Tooru for another day. 

The grip on his wrist is painful as it drags him along, but not nearly as painful as the red, stinging imprint of a hand on the side of Tooru’s face looks.

“Where are we going?” he says flatly. The fields sway like waves ahead of them. He can see a pair of velvety doe ears peeking out over the crowns of grass a few meters off, and every so often he catches Mel’s tiny swallow body diving between them.

“It’s a secret, Iwa-chan!” Tooru sing-songs to him, but it sounds flatter than usual. 

Hajime scowls. He despises this new nickname. “I hate secrets.”

Tooru turns to face him. His eyes are wide and his smile deceptively cheerful. “I know! And fun too, apparently!”

Hajime yanks back the arm Tooru has a grip on. Infuriatingly enough, Tooru barely even stumbles and he certainly doesn’t let go. “We’re not supposed to go past _Nogebashi_.”

“I know that,” Tooru replies with a sniff, nose high in the air. 

“But that’s not going to stop you from dragging me over it, is it?”

His shoulders jump and Hajime knows he’s caught him on his secret. Still, Tooru masks his guilt and sends Hajime another infuriatingly cheerful ( _false_ ) smile. “Nope!”

“Tooru,” Hajime says, dragging his name out in warning.

He catches Hajime’s eye with a sly grin. “I never said we were going _over_ the bridge.”

Hajime regards him cooly. “You also never said that we _weren’t_. You never said _anything_ because you were stupidly trying to keep this a secret.”

“Well I’m saying it now.” He shrugs absently. “And it wasn’t stupid. _You’re_ stupid.”

Hajime rolls his eyes but keeps his mouth shut. He’s not going to rise to the bait. Not when it’s that obvious, anyway. He’s not eight anymore. He’s _nine_ , and that’s a completely different story. “Whatever. We’ll go _to_ the bridge, but we’re not going _over_ it.”

“Such a worry-wart, Iwa-chan!” he says with a dramatic sigh. “I don’t need _two_ mothers.”

That causes Hajime’s response to die on his tongue. He purses his lips together. Red splotchy patches still linger under the skin of Tooru’s cheek. There’s a small cut where the edge of a nail had bitten into his skin. He doesn’t have to be a genius like Tooru to piece together what happened, to realize what put Tooru into this weird mood of his. Hajime swallows down his usual reply and tears his eyes away. “You’re right. You’re far too much to handle for just two people and a dæmon.”

“Rude!”

“Maybe you need _two_ dæmons, or an army. We should stop at one of the shrines on the way and see if there are any spare _kami_ that want to come along.” Hajime begins lifting the fingers on his one free hand. “One to knock some sense into you. One to take care of your clumsiness. One for your gross attitude. One to do something about that idiotic cowlick—”

Instead of getting flustered, Tooru just smirks and replies, “—And while we’re there maybe we should to find one that’ll fix that horrid monkey face of yours!”

Hajime’s expression pulls into a scowl. This is a new trick Tooru’s been learning. Long gone is the child from a year ago who used to cry at the drop of a hat, the one that used to wear his emotions so blatantly on his sleeves. Somewhere along the way Tooru figured out how to take things and shift them in his favor, be it his words or his expressions. It’s as though he moves like water, ever shifting, and it works irritatingly well. 

Before it had always been easy to lob harmless sarcasm at Tooru to take his steadily-growing ego down a peg, but Hajime’s finding it harder and harder to volley from these new returns the boy sends him. He’s never been as good with his words as Tooru.

Instead, he steps into Tooru’s space and jams his elbow into the soft juncture of his rib and hip. Tooru crumples with an indignant squawk and Hajime feels his mouth twitch into a smirk. No, he may not be good with words, but he’s always been good with actions.

“Fi!” Tooru wails, in a voice reminiscent of that old Tooru. “Hajime’s being a brute!”

The ears up ahead perk up and turn about to face them. “But he’s always a brute.”

Just like that Tooru’s grin is back. Hajime tries to wrestle his arm out of his grasp, but he holds on tight. “Such a bully, that Hajime!,” he croons, lips pulled back in a devilish half-smile, half-wince. “What a monster!”

“I’ll show you a monster,” Hajime growls. He stuffs one of his hands into Tooru’s long floppy hair and digs his knuckles in. Tooru twists his other arm back in retaliation.

“Fi!” he cries in an affectedly saccharine voice as they continue to grapple. “Fiorenza, my one and only!”

Hajime grinds his foot down on Tooru’s. “Oh shut _up._ ”

He doesn’t. “Fi, please!” He cries in a gleefully dramatic tone. “Oh help me,  **ɥ** **ǝld ɯǝ** _!_ Come quick! Ah, **ʇ** **ɥ** **ǝ ʌ** **ɐ** **doɹs** _!”_

Hajime stops and stares down at where he’s got Tooru bent awkwardly against his side. “What?”

Just like that, their tussle is forgotten. Tooru blinks up at him owlishly. “I dunno. Just something Mrs. Meijer said in the shop this morning.”

“Meijer? Like that tailor shop by the port?”

“Yeah.” He wiggles in Hajime’s grasp so he can face him more head on. “The whole family came by yesterday, but the missus wasn’t looking too good, like she kept swaying as though she was going to fall over. Then she went all ‘Oh Luuk, **p** **ɐ** **ɹ** **ן** **ıu** **ƃ** _‘_ anduh, something something, and then ‘ **ʇ** **ɥ** **ǝ ʌ** **ɐ** **doɹs** ' ** _!_** _”_

He punctuates this statement by bringing a hand up to his forehead, like he’s about to swoon. “So she took this little container out of her purse and stuck it right up her nose! And suddenly bam, all better!” He bats his long eyelashes at Hajime. “It was all very exciting.”

Hajime takes advantage of the opportunity and drops him to the ground. 

Tooru lets out a loud yelp that brings Hajime instant satisfaction. But then, with this being the new and improved _move like water_ Tooru, Hajime finds himself drop-kicked down to the ground beside him in a matter of seconds. 

He groans as the pain catches up to him and lifts his head so the dirt doesn’t dig into his face so uncomfortably. Spitting gravel off of his lip, he eventually shuffles into a better position. Tooru, across from him, has his hands clutched around the back of head and he squirms in his own pain.

“So what does it mean, anyway?” Hajime asks.

Tooru turns to face him, lip jut out in a pout. “I _could_ tell you, but Satsuki says you’re not supposed to reward animals for misbehaving.” 

Hajime kicks at his leg with no real power behind it. 

Tooru jerks his leg back anyway, pout still in place but less defined. “Fine. I don’t know what it means,” he admits. “It just sounded funny when she said it. She was being so _dramatic_.” At this he pulls a face.

“Yeah, and you know nothing about that.”

Tooru scoffs, “I’m _expressive_ , not dramatic.” 

“Like there’s a difference.”

“Rude! At this point you’ll never be house-trained, you mongrel,” he crows, throwing his head back into the dirt. He stays like that a moment, eyes staring up into the blue sky overhead. Then he licks his lips and says, “Hey, Iwa-chan?”

Hajime hums.

Tooru turns back to face him, eyes shining. “What if you studied English with me?”

Hajime blinks back at him. “Where’d that come from?”

“Well, I was just thinking,” he starts. “You keep pestering me about all these silly little words I’m picking up and it’s too hard for me to explain them all. You should just learn yourself!”

Brow furrowing, Hajime shifts to lay his head down on his bent arm so he can look Tooru in the eye. “How am I supposed to do that? It’s not like they teach that kinda stuff in school.”

“No, not _there_ ,” Tooru interrupts. “My father has a client that wants to tutor me for real with some of the westerner kids from _Nogeyama_. They’ll learn Nipponese while I learn English. It’s a win-win! You should join me.”

Hajime balks. “I can’t,” he blurts out. 

Tooru quirks an eyebrow up at him. “Can’t or won’t?”

“Both,” he says, exasperated. “I mean… First of all, how am I supposed to even pay? My family’s not like yours.”

Tooru wrinkles his nose. “Like mine? We’re fishermen, Iwa-chan, not snooty old _daimyo_. Besides, it’s a family favor. The tutor gets discounted fish or something if he takes me in. And they’re getting to learn Nipponese with us too, so it goes both ways. I’m sure they’d take you in. I mean, it’d be even better with someone other than me!”

“But English is…,” he searches for the word to describe the strange sensation he feels whenever the words pour from Tooru’s mouth. Impossible? Daunting? Mesmerizing? Awesome and awful at the same time?

He’s just a farm kid, meant to follow his father and cousins to the fields. Going to any sort of private lessons is a whole thing in and of itself, and that’s not even considering how far behind he’d already be. Tooru grew up among the Dutch on the docks of Dejima, only to throw himself headlong into English the second he touched down in Yokohama. He’s brilliant, in his own unrefined way, when it comes to picking up languages and stringing together fancy syllables like music. Hajime can barely say an English _hello_.

“It’s not _that_ hard,” Tooru interrupts. “You just kind of figure it out when you hear it a lot, like a puzzle! And besides, you’d have me to help you out. With my help even a wild animal like you could probably pick it up!” His eyes flash again, that odd spark of intrigue catching in the warm brown of them. 

And that’s it, isn’t it? Tooru has always been such a mystery, just _off_ enough to catch the eye, edges blurred enough to demand focus. All of that potential he has brimming inside of him, just waiting for the right moment and outlet to emerge? Truly brilliant and yet wholly unattainable. Is it curiosity or jealousy that has kept Hajime so close on his heels this past year? Is that spark of brilliance something Hajime even has? And if he somehow does, would the effort be enough to keep up? 

How long would it take Tooru to outpace him and leave him behind? 

He’s not sure, but he’s stubborn enough to sort of want to try.

Hiding the newfound interest behind careful nonchalance, he sighs and relaxes into the curve of his arm again. “You just want someone around to pick on.”

It’s not outright confirmation to his question, but Tooru grins back at him like it is, wide and brilliant. “Yep.”

“You could always pester the other kids.”

“Mmm it’s not the same.” Tooru winks at him. “Iwa-chan’s reactions are the best.”

Hajime reaches his spare arm out to pinch Tooru’s nose shut. “Do you want me to come or not?”

“I do, I do!” he says, voice a high, nasally pitch as he struggles to break free from Hajime’s grip, laughing all the while. 

Hajime snorts, releasing Tooru and sinking further down onto his resting arm. The grass looms above them, shading them from the oppressive heat. The ground has been baked warm by the sun and it feels good through the fabric of his clothes. Not far off he can hear the sounds of Mel and Fiorenza rustling through the grass, probably off play-fighting again. His bond to Mel is a gentle, comforting tug at the center of his chest.

Tooru smiles at him, not a grin but a genuine smile. Hajime smiles back. 

His eyes droop closed.

Some time later (how long, exactly, he’s not sure) a rustle of grass stirs him from his nap. Hajime cracks one eye open and looks over at his friend, still lying parallel to him. Tooru, it seems, had also slipped into an easy cat-nap.

The rustling comes again and Hajime tilts his head back to see. It’s Mel, her _tanuki_ snout peeping through the grass above his head. “Did you have a good nap?” she teases. 

Hajime doesn’t answer, just hooks his arm around her head and flops her over onto his stomach. She laughs, nuzzling into his neck and poking him with her claws as she pretends to try to break free. They wrestle like this all the time, all intricate tangles and misplaced limbs. A delighted smile works its way onto his face as she head-butts his jaw. He buries his nose into her fur and inhales. She smells like home: sunlight and _tatami_ and something purely them. 

When he pulls back, he feels eyes on him. Sure enough, when he turns to look, Tooru is watching him with a funny expression. Fiorenza has returned as well. Her cat body lingers at the grass’s edge, tail lazily swishing back and forth as she mirrors her human’s watchful eyes. Tooru’s lip is caught between his teeth and there’s a ruddiness at the apples of his cheeks. The flush catches the thin cut on his cheekbone and the question from earlier that morning springs back to the forefront of Hajime’s mind. 

“ _Now_ are you gonna tell me what happened between you and Auntie?” he asks, hoping the lazy nap and warm sunlight might have lowered Tooru’s earlier defenses. 

Tooru’s eyes immediately dart away, the weird glaze from before gone from them, while one hand comes up to prod the cut, as though trying to rub it out of existence and off of Hajime’s mind. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Nothing happened.”

Hajime looks to Mel, who matches his own unimpressed expression. He wouldn’t be surprised if she’d gotten the same excuses from Fiorenza during their earlier romp. Tooru and Fi could both be so _impossible_ sometimes. “That’s a lie and you know it.”

Tooru stays silent. The grass rustles around them and somewhere up above a crow calls out into the late summer heat. 

Hajime sighs. “You don’t have to lie to me,” he says, tilting his head to try to catch Tooru’s avoidant gaze. “I’m your friend, idiot.” 

“Friends don’t call their friends idiots,” Tooru mutters, eyes flicking back to Hajime and then away again.

Hajime snorts, but it lacks edge. “They do when they’re _being_ idiots.”

Instead of bickering back, Tooru goes oddly silent.

“Tooru,” Fiorenza says, voice gentle but insistent. 

Tooru’s nose wrinkles, but after sending a particularly petulant scowl in her direction, he props his head up in his palm and finally meets Hajime’s eyes head on. His gaze takes on a funny sharpness that Hajime’s only seen a couple of times. By now, he knows this means Tooru is thinking hard about something.

“Okay,” he finally says. “Remember what I said about the Meijers?” 

Hajime blinks, taken aback by the sudden non-sequitur. “About how the lady almost collapsed?”

“No, not that. I mean, _yeah,_ I guess it’s related.” Tooru drags a hand through his hair, falling onto his back with a fling of his arms. “See, she looked fine after she sat down for a bit, but they stuck around just to be safe. My parents didn’t want me bothering her, so I got kicked out with other kids.”

Oliver and Lotte. Hajime has never met them, but he’s heard Tooru complaining about the younger of the two enough times to stick. The sister’s name was usually just a hastily tacked-on afterthought. “And?” he supplies after Tooru’s silence goes on longer than expected.

Tooru’s face is screwed up as he stares up at the sky. “Well, another ship came in from Hong Kong on Tuesday. The Meijers were in town to pick up some parcels before they dropped by. Now, I don’t know who decided to give the brat a _cricket bat_ of all things, but they deserve to be shoved into the ocean if you ask me.”

“ _Tooru_.”

Hajime gets a raspberry blown in his direction for his interruption. “Lotte got some new English books though,” he continues after a beat. “They were pretty cool.”

That causes Hajime to sit up to get a better look. “You’re reading already?” 

Tooru turns to fix him with a smirk. “Jealous?”

Hajime scowls, not trusting his words to hide the fact that, yes, some part of him is kind of jealous.

If Tooru catches on, he doesn’t comment, only snorts and waves a hand in the air. “I mean I can sound some things out, but I’m not _that_ good. Not yet, anyway.” His hand reaches over to stroke Fiorenza, but he reels it back in at the last moment. “I didn’t read them on my own, she just read a few bits out to me.”

Hajime takes a second to try to picture the scene: Lotte Meijer, probably another pale-eyed, flaxen-haired waif like all the other Dutch children he’s seen, perched on the stoop outside the Oikawa fishmonger with Tooru and Fiorenza eager at her side. He imagines them both, bent over a book, Tooru’s eyes wide and bright beside the faceless mask of the unknown girl. In this scene, Tooru’s finger traces the page and he follows it with hawklike sharpness. Hajime wonders what kind of shape the Meijer girl’s dæmon prefers.

Maybe he is more than just _kind_ _of_ jealous. 

“What’s your point?” he asks, bringing himself back to the moment. 

“Well,” he pushes himself up into a full sitting position. “You know the _red string of fate_?”

“The old wive’s tale?” Hajime asks, one eyebrow quirking up as he stares up at Tooru from the ground. “I guess. Why?”

Tooru leans forward, hands on his knees, until he’s right up in Hajime’s face. His expression tries for something insightful, but comes off looking more constipated than anything. “See, they’ve got the same destined-lovers mumbo-jumbo in Europe too. The story was talking all about it, but get this: there’s no string.”

Hajime ponders that for a moment. “So what is there instead?”

At this, Tooru’s face does a few funny things. He opens his mouth, then closes it. His brow furrows as his lips slant one way, then the other. Fiorenza’s tail flicks. She looks over at Tooru with cool intensity, and his nose wrinkles at her insistence.

“Lotte said,“ he finally starts, having apparently found the right words, “that people held together by fate are called _soul mates_ , because it's like their souls tie them together instead of the string _._ You know what a soul is, right?”

Hajime sits back and considers it. Well yeah, sure he knows the word _soul_ , but that’s all it really is: an empty word. It comes up whenever his grandmother tends to the _butsudan_ hidden away in the cellar, but he’s never had much of a concept for the idea of a _soul_. 

His arm comes up to scratch thoughtfully at Mel’s belly. She squirms in his lap, pleased, and on a particularly nice rub she snuffles and arches into his touch with a pleased whine. Hajime laughs at her, but then an idea comes to him. 

“Dæmons?”

Tooru breaks out into a one-man applause, though he does it with the enthusiasm of an entire crowd. “Good, good Iwa-chan! Look, that brain of yours comes in handy sometimes!”

Hajime doesn’t pay the insult any mind, too caught up in trying to parse out the meaning of this weird new concept. “So what’s that got to do with anything?”

“Well, that’s what a soul’s supposed to be…,” he trails off, hands waving in the air as though he’ll pick the words right out of it. “They’re like your thoughts and feelings and personality and stuff. They’re what makes you _you_.”

“Mel’s not like that.” Hajime interrupts. He pokes Mel’s belly and she yelps, swiping at his hand in retaliation. “See? She’s got her own thoughts and feelings and personality, just like any other _ancestral-kami_. She would have seen that coming if she were just me, but she didn’t.”

“Unfortunately,” she mutters, pulling his hand down to gnaw on his knuckles.

“And Fiorenza’s not like you,” Hajime continues. 

Mel stops nibbling long enough to give Tooru a long, appraising look. “Fortunately,” she says before going back to work.

Across the way, Fiorenza’s sudden seriousness wavers as she allows herself to preen at the compliment. Tooru frowns, unimpressed. “Very funny. But that’s not what I meant. See, Lotte said that dæmons aren’t _kami_ , but they’re like… reflections of us that are here so that we can—oh, how’d she put it—better understand ourselves, or something like that. That’s why, when you do all of your growing up as a kid and you figure what being grown-up is, then bam! That’s when they settle and you become an adult!”

“I don’t think it’s a ‘ _bam_ ’ kind of thing,” Hajime says, dryly.

“The point is,” Tooru continues, holding a hand up to quiet him. “That your dæmon is you, but it’s like a separate part of you that looks like some _thing_ else. But then there’s your soulmate, who is also like a part of you, but is some _one_ else.”

Hajime frowns, his face screwing up in thought. “This is getting confusing. Are you saying there are two souls?”

Tooru sighs dramatically. “It’s not that difficult, Iwa-chan. You just gotta put two and two together. Think of them like one thing that just needs to… connect! And if they don’t have a red string how would they connect?” He catches Hajime’s eye again and the intensity in his gaze is back. “They’re connected by their _dæmons_. So, if you want to make that connection, first you have to connect those two parts of yourself. You understand? It’s like you’re tying the red string yourself.”

The gears click into place and Hajime’s expression drops. “Tooru, you _didn’t_.”

Tooru just stares at him, lopsided smile wry and vaguely challenging, which only serves to make Hajime that much angrier. He shoves forward and up so he can look Tooru in the eye. 

“Dæmons are sacred, idiot!” he sputters, smacking him across the shoulder. “You’re not supposed to touch someone else’s dæmon! There’s curses and stuff, like any other kind of protective _kami_! Nothing but bad shit happens when you mess with them, didn’t Auntie ever tell you that?”

As Hajime towers over him, Tooru expression falls into a something calm but defiant. “Well she definitely got the point across just fine today.”

Tooru’s gaze is cool and unperturbed, masking something deeper beneath the surface. The cut is a globby scab at his cheekbone. _Move like water._ Hajime purses his lips into a thin line.

Finally, clicking his tongue, he breaks contact and turns away to look out to the grassy field. “I can’t believe you’d be that stupid. You’re gonna be cursed for _ages_ ,” he bites out.

Tooru hums lightly. “To be fair, she started it.”

Hajime nearly throws his arms up in disbelief. “Who, _Au_ _ntie_?”

“Lotte.”

Mel reacts first, going rigid against Hajime’s thigh. It takes Hajime a second longer to catch up to her. “What?”

Tooru shrugs. “She was really into the story and wanted to see if what it said was true. I thought it sounded fun.”

“ _Fun_?”

“Lotte said that if we were soulmates then we’d know because our dæmons would settle. That’s what the story in the book said, at least.” His face is eerily serious when he asks, “Don’t you want to know who your soulmate is? Or what Mel’s gonna be? Wouldn’t you want to know if there’s a person out there who makes her shift permanently?”

That’s… an strange way to put it. Hajime bites back his reply and looks down at Mel in his lap. He’s never really thought about what it could be like for her to shift and then never shift again. No, not what it _could_ be like, but what it eventually _will_ be like. One day she’s going to change and never ever change back. 

And if what Tooru’s saying is true, then there’s someone out there who could make her change forever, someone who could possibly make her change _right_ _now_ and that’s… well, that’s kind of scary. But scary in an exciting sort of way?

Mel bats at his hand and snorts, as though she’s read his mind and is already tired of wherever his train of thought is going. Maybe she’s right.

“You actually touched Lotte’s dæmon,” Hajime breathes, and it comes out like a question.

“Mmhmm.”

“But,” he looks over to Fiorenza, “she didn’t shift for good?”

Tooru snorts. “You’ve seen her shift like five times today.” 

He’s right. That’s where the conversation could and should end, but now that the idea is on the table, Hajime is suddenly kind of curious. “What…,” he starts. “What was it like?”

Tooru cocks his head. “What?”

“You know,” Hajime says, face screwing up. It feels weird even to say it, kind of _wrong_. “Touching…”

“Don’t hurt yourself, Iwa-chan,” Tooru snorts. “And, I don’t know, it felt... _weird_."

There's a funny little knot forming in Hajime's belly. "Good weird?"

Tooru's nose wrinkles. " _Weird_ weird. Skin crawly weird. Not the _right_ kind of weird either, according to Lotte . Not when I touched hers _or_ when she touched Fi. It was basically nothing."

“It didn’t… _Nothing_?” 

“Nothing,” he says with a stiff shrug. “It was like petting any old normal rabbit. Lotte’s… just _Lotte_. She’s nice and all, but she doesn’t feel like soulmate material, you know?” 

Hajime’s frown deepens. “No, I don’t know. I thought that was the whole point!”

Tooru’s face twists up into a lemon-puckered scowl. “Well I know what I felt and it was nothing special. _Lotte’s_ nothing special, okay? So just drop it.” 

And it’s then that Hajime notices the weird… _tension_ lingering in the air. Somehow, though, it’s not between Tooru and himself, but between Tooru and _Fi_ , still perched beside him in Sphinx-like elegance. Her feline tail waves back and forth, fluffed out at the end while her ears twitch flat against her head. Tooru glances at her but she doesn’t look back. There’s a stiffness in their usual routine.

_Nothing_ , he’d said, but there had to have been _something_ , right? There’s almost certainly something Tooru’s not telling him.

Hajime’s never been good with words, so instead he reaches over and thwacks Tooru over the head. “Don’t talk about people like that. You sound like an ass.”

Fiorenza starts first, gazing up at Hajime with wide, shocked yellow eyes. Just like that the spell is broken. 

Tooru blinks at him a few times himself and then bursts out into a fit of giggles. “How chivalrous, Iwa-chan! Protecting a poor girl’s feelings? What a knight in shining armor! Maybe Lotte’s _your_ soulmate.”

Hajime retracts his hand, falling back against the ground. He stares up at the clouds. “How would she be my soulmate? I’ve never even met her.”

“That doesn’t matter. It’s _destiny_.”

“Well that’s stupid.”

“You’re stupid,” Tooru snorts. Then, leaning over into Hajime’s line of sight with a dirty leer, “So how about the people you _have_ met?”

Hajime shoves him away to arms' length. “I don’t know! We’re only nine, Tooru, I don’t wanna talk about soulmates and gross touching and all that junk.”

“Suit yourself!” He hears Tooru shuffle back into sitting. “Hey, just think of all the new people we’ll meet at our English lessons. One of us is bound to meet our soulmate there!”

“I never actually said I was going.”

“You also never said you weren’t,” Fiorenza says smartly.

Hajime turns his head and scowls at her. She flicks her tail, utterly pleased with herself. At least the rigid cut of her spine is gone.

“How about this,” Tooru says, touching a finger to his chin. “We still have to get to the bridge, right? If you beat me there, you can be a boring little farm boy and stay at your boring little farm home for the rest of your boring little farm life. But if _I_ win, you have to come to the lessons with me _and_ you have to promise to stay as long as I do. No backing out.”

Hajime rolls his eyes. “Yeah, sure, to the bridge. As long as we don’t go _over_ it. Just help me up.” He plants his hands beside him to push himself up when he hears the scuffle of dirt and looks over. 

Tooru is already gone, the only evidence left behind the rustling of the tall grass as it settles back into place behind him. “Hey!” Hajime sputters, scrambling to get to his feet. “Get back here, you cheat!”

“You should have seen that coming,” he hears Mel laugh above the wind rushing by his ears. “I think you’re stuck with him, now.”

Yes, he thinks as the sun beats down on him and Tooru’s whooping laughter rings out against the summer sky. He supposes he is.

 


	2. 1897〜1899

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For reference:
> 
> "Japanese (Nipponese in this case)"  
> " **English (understood)** "  
> " **Ǝuƃlᴉsɥ (uoʇ nupǝɹsʇoop)**
> 
> (Inspiration for this style came from [this fantastic fic by sunsmasher](https://archiveofourown.org/works/8329939))

_You are thirteen years old when you learn that hands alone can do wicked things._

 

 

 

 

The Grandstand at _Negishi_ is a towering figure above the _Yamate_ plateau. The stark white of its silhouette stands as a beacon, a flagstaff in the center of a world of affluence Hajime has never known, even with it right at his doorstep. Always something to admire, never to approach. 

At least, it had been until now. Somehow, it’s almost more foreboding up close.

This is a stupid idea and he knows it, but Tooru’s curiosity is as insatiable as his pride is fragile, and Hajime should understand by now that the combination of the two things only ever leads to trouble, and _yet_.

“—and I’ll bet you all the pocket money I own,” Tooru grunts, throwing his leg up to get better purchase on the wall he’s attempting to scale, “that _Makki—_ ” the newly coined nickname drips off of his tongue with great distaste and frustration, “—is lying and we’re doing this all for _nothing_.”

His leg fumbles pitifully against the wall’s smooth surface. Hajime gives him another five seconds of pointless scrambling before he slides his shoulder up under his flailing foot. “Great,” he replies, pushing Tooru’s leg up, “then can we go home?”

Tooru’s shoe digs into his collarbone, particularly hard and most likely not an accident. “ _That_ would be an admission of defeat.”

Hajime grunts but continues to push up against Tooru’s weight until he hoists himself up into the open window frame. “So?” 

“ _So_ that’s not an option.”

Hajime gives him a flat look from below. “Why do you even care?”

“Because,” Tooru says, smirking down at Hajime from his new perch on the windowsill, “it’ll be all the more satisfying to prove to everyone what a liar he is.”

“Your personality is shit, you know that?”

“And your vocabulary is atrocious,” Tooru fires back, taking obvious glee from his advanced vocabulary, “but I let you stay around anyway. I’m so charitable, aren’t I?”

“ _Let_ me.” Hajime mocks, crossing his arms. “I couldn’t escape if I tried.”

“Yep, stuck to me like glue! How unfortunate for you!” 

Tooru laughs, head thrown back and legs akimbo in the air. It’s an ugly, obnoxious thing to behold. Hajime lets him have a few seconds of that gleeful, self-satisfaction before he makes to turn heel and starts off the way they’d come. 

The laughter cuts off abruptly. “Wait!” he hears Tooru squawk behind him. “Wait, I’ll stop, I’ll stop! Come back!”

Predictable. Hajime bites on the inside of his cheek to prevent himself from smirking. Mel lets out a quiet chirrup of laughter from where she clings to his hairline with sticky gecko feet. 

As he approaches the wall again, Tooru reaches a hand down, invitingly wiggling his fingers in his face. Hajime sends him a baleful look, which he returns with a grin. Somehow Hajime feels like he’s just been played as well. Still, he takes the offer with a roll of his eyes, clasping his fingers tight around Tooru’s wrist and hoisting himself up.

“Ugh, heavy,” Tooru wheezes after Hajime has settled down beside him on the window frame. Hajime gives him a shove, not enough to push him off, but enough to make him startle and flail for a hand grip anyway.

“Careful,” Fiorenza warns from where she patiently waits, standing guard at the bottom of the wall in today’s chosen form of a water spaniel. She’s practically the spitting image of Tooru with her long, glossy fur in the deep shade of chestnut that it is.

Tooru shoots him a raspberry as a retaliative ‘I told you so.’ He can be so petty, sometimes. Hajime rolls his eyes for what feels like the millionth time today (and it’s only 9am) and turns back out to the scenery. 

From up here, he can see the track in all its glory. The race path is a dusty yellow stretching out around a large open field. On the far side there are spectators lined up and waiting behind the wire fencing, mostly Nipponese. A few old ladies lean against the posts with handkerchiefs tied around their heads like bonnets. A group of men stand together a little ways off, swapping banknotes between them as wagers for the races to come. They gesture wildly in argument at the handful of jockeys already gathered at the gates.

“Speaking of glue — ” Tooru starts, breaking the silence. 

“When were we doing that?” Hajime cuts in. His eyes follow one of the men’s emphatic arm wave towards a short Western jockey in brightly-colored silks leading a grey stallion off to the water trough. 

“—did you know that glue is made from horses?”

Hajime turns abruptly. “Ex _cuse_ me?”

Tooru idly kicks his feet against the wall. “Well, most of the time it’s horses, but they’ll use any old farm animal, really. Cows, pigs, sheep, you name it. I hear that’s what they do to the racehorses when they stop winning.” He grins at Hajime expectantly. “Gross, right?”

The grey stallion lets out a whiney as it happily trots in place. Hajime wrinkles his nose. “It’s sad is what it is. So they’re only good if they’re good for something? Sound like a harsh load of bullshit if you ask me.”

It’s Tooru’s turn to wrinkle his nose. He makes a sour expression as he follows Hajime’s gaze to the racehorse. His legs stop kicking at the wall and he’s silent for a stretch. Hajime waits for him to make another silly remark, but one never comes, and he gets the distinct feeling he’s said something wrong or hurt Tooru’s feelings. Somehow. Who knows. Tooru’s been especially finicky these past few weeks.

But then, just as quickly as the mood had come over Tooru it’s gone. He lets out a deep sigh and hops down from the window into the hallway behind them. Fiorenza, now an iridescent blue butterfly, flutters in through the window after him, finding a perch at the crown of his head. “That’s why this sport’s so _boring_. The jockeys with horses for dæmons always have the better careers because they last longer. If those old farts out there have any brains they’ll bet on that Fukuzawa guy everyone in town’s been going on about.”

Hajime spares the racehorse one last look before following after him. The hallway is small and mostly empty. There’s a bucket and wash-cloth against one wall and a few doors along the corridor. This area of the main building is probably used for storage, and judging by the film of dust covering almost every inch of the floor it’s one that’s not used very often. Good. Just like they’d been told. “Where’d you learn all that racehorse stuff anyway?” he asks.

Up ahead of him, Tooru ducks his head into a room and, apparently finding nothing, pops back out again. “Are you deaf? Mr. _Dumb_ ont has been talking about it all week. I’m sure he’s up there in the crowds preparing to go broke as we speak.”

Mr. Dumont is the latest English tutor to make his way to their makeshift schoolhouse at the edge of the Bluff. Tooru doesn’t like the man, for some reason (or perhaps no reason at all), and makes it known as often and as loudly as possible. Hajime doesn’t have much of an opinion of him, more puzzled than anything that a Christian missionary would gamble. 

“I guess I was too busy doing my penmanship practice like we were supposed to be doing,” Hajime mutters, glancing into another room. Still no one.

“ _Boooooring_ ,” Tooru whines. “It’s just writing the same stupid word over and over and over again. I learn more English looking at fish barrels than I do copying _Dumb_ ont’s vocabulary lists.” He marches off into another room after jiggling the handle and finding it unlocked.

“Yeah, and that’s why no one can read your chicken-scratch writing, dumbass. If you just sat down and did the work, I wouldn’t have to hear you complain about your shitty marks.”

He hears Tooru’s gasp echo through the hall. “You’re so mouthy today, Iwa-chan!”

“He’s mouthy _every_ day,” comes a voice from the end of the hall. “It’s the only way he can keep you in line, Oikawa.”

Tooru’s head shoots out from the open doorway, a nasty grin already in place. “Makki! I guess you’re not a filthy liar after all!”

“Such a high opinion of me!” Hanamaki calls back, beaming. His dæmon, Sera, scampers along on her short weasel legs at his feet. “And here I was going to say I was glad you both made it, but maybe I should take it back.”

Matsukawa trails behind him, lugging along a limp red panda in his arms. “I’m just surprised you were able to reach the window ledge, Shortykawa”

Tooru turns his nose up into the air, regarding the pair of them haughtily. “Say all you want now, but everyone knows late-bloomers always end up the tallest in the end!”

“Whatever you say, Shortykawa,” Hanamaki says, standing all but 3 centimeters taller. He reaches a hand over to pat the top of Tooru's head, causing Fiorenza to hurriedly take flight. Tooru deftly dodges the move, ducking under the other boy’s arm and stepping on his toes in the process. He, Matsukawa, and all the dæmons present laugh at Hanamaki’s resulting curses.

Hajime is a different story. All but reaching his breaking point, he strides forward and grabs Tooru by the shirt collar, pulling him along towards the end of the hallway in the direction that Hanamaki and Matsukawa had come from. “Shut up, all of you, or we’ll get caught and kicked out. Or _worse_.”

“Aye aye, sir,” Matsukawa intones, falling into step behind him.

“Testy,” Hanamaki says, still grinning.

“I _know_ ,” Tooru agrees, all prior animosity between the two of them forgotten.

Hajime glares back over his shoulder. It’s like herding cats with the three of them together. He almost preferred having Tooru alone. _Almost_. He clicks his tongue and keeps walking. “Let’s just get going.”

He hears them all snicker behind him, but at least they do so quietly. 

The plan—as Tooru had mentioned earlier—had been Hanamaki’s at the start. Its conception had gone like this: 

Hanamaki Takahiro was the son of a manager at the new power plant in town. Matsukawa Issei, the son of a local politician from the Prefectural Assembly. Their father’s exact roles, admittedly, went over Hajime’s head, but both he and Tooru had understood the importance of the boys’ addition to the tiny language school they’d helped build from the ground up. 

A few weeks after the boys’ admission and there had been new penmanship books to study from. A few months after that and there had been a sparkling new building for them to use. The handful of classmates they’d had had suddenly turned into a proper roomful, and what had been casual classes every few days had become full-blown, weekly lessons over the course of half of a year. 

The new additions, naturally, drew attention. The small tutoring school had always been well regarded among Yokohama’s globally-minded traders, but having two rich boys from _Kannai_ among their ranks brought new prestige. Down time after lessons was suddenly filled with stories of performances at the theatre on _Honmachi_ , cricket games at the Country & Athletic Club, and all sorts of other niceties that only existed to kids born high enough up on the Bluff. 

Hajime had been just fine shrugging it off. He knew his roots and he was fine being nothing but a farmer’s kid. The same couldn’t be said for Tooru, whose eyes lit up with hunger even as his lips pulled tight in shame every time the stories came. 

So when Hanamaki had told the two of them of a back entrance into the Grandstand—a corner of the building no one ever looked in—and had offered them an invitation, Tooru had eaten it up voraciously. 

Which found them here.

“We’ll take a left up here,” Matsukawa says as they approach a dead end. “There’ll be some stairs with a small window under them. That’s where we’re headed.”

Hajime nods, keeping his grip on Tooru’s shirt tight. 

They make it to the corner when Matsukawa stops them with a hand on Hajime’s chest. Tooru and Hanamaki crowd up to either side of him to watch as Matsukawa lets Mami fall to the floor where she lazily shifts from red panda to long, black centipede. Then she slinks off down the hall, hugging the wall to check for anyone who could spot them and turn them over to security.

“Cool,” Hajime whispers, entranced by the wave-like motion of her long, yellow legs. 

“You have the weirdest tastes, Iwa-chan. Centipedes are poisonous, you know.”

“Venomous, not poisonous,” he replies distractedly, not taking his eyes off Mami until she’s completely disappeared from his sight.

Tooru’s chin comes to rest on his shoulder. “Oh yeah, that’s right. I guess Iwa-chan _does_ have a brain trapped in that thick skull of his.”

“Get off of me,” Hajime grouses, shrugging his shoulder to dislodge him. “And stop breathing in my face. Your breath stinks.”

“So _mean_ ,” Tooru replies, dragging out the last word and latching his arms around Hajime’s middle like a vice to fight the attempts to shake him off.

“S’not mean if it’s true.”

“You don’t hear me complaining about _your_ stinky breath.”

“You do that literally _all the time_.”

“Lies and slander!”

Hanamaki makes a thoughtful sound to Hajime’s right. “Wow, you guys really do have that down to a routine, huh?”

Hajime and Tooru share a puzzled look, their tussling slowing to a halt. 

“I get a lot of practice,” Hajime replies flatly. 

Tooru peers his head back enough to send Hanamaki a pesky grin. “Jealous, Makki?”

Hanamaki regards them, one eyebrow raised, and shrugs. “Hmm, who can say?”

Just then Matsukawa waves them over with a hand, rounding the corner ahead of them towards the stairs. The three of them follow suit.

“He’s a pest,” Hajime mutters to Hanamaki as they walk. “You don’t want him.”

Tooru scoffs. “I’m a _delight_ and you’re just mad that other people might want to hog me for themselves! Admit it!”

“Be _quiet._ ” Hajime elbows him to make his point. 

“Brute,” is all Tooru says back, hand gripping his side protectively as they continue walking.

They move along in silence after that, dodging spectators and guards alike. Hajime doesn’t miss the cryptic, meaningful look Tooru sends him once when Hanamaki and Matsukawa aren’t looking. 

Still, that doesn’t mean he gets what it’s supposed to mean.

 

* * *

 

They find a cramped nook under one of the viewing awnings just the right size to fit a few scrawny teenage boys. The events have already started by the time they settle down, but Hajime has the feeling this outing was never really about watching the races to begin with. He’s glad, in a way. It’s not like he would have been able to follow what was happening much anyway. He’s having a good enough time just talking and watching the horses run without having to worry about rankings and bets and all that nonsense.

“Is there food?” Tooru pipes up halfway through the sixth race. “I’m starving,”

Matsukawa peers at him over the tops of his knees where they’re pressed up under his chin. He gives him a long once-over, brow cocked. “Are you gonna go out there by yourself dressed like _that_?”

Tooru physically reels back, cheeks darkening as he glances down at his _geta_ and rolled-up _hakama_. It causes Hajime to look down at his own similar attire. Their outfits are both a far cry from what their cohorts are sporting. 

Tooru’s always been good at rallying his emotions, though. He straightens. “Says the guy all gussied-up like a baby doll,” he says, waving a finger at Matsukawa’s shiny loafers and sailor collar with a barely masked smirk. “If your clothes are so ‘normal’ why don’t _you_ go out grab something _for_ me?”

Matsukawa blinks at him slowly then turns back to the racetrack. “I’ll pass.”

“Shows what a good host _you_ are,” Tooru replies.

“Oikawa, I’ll go if you pay me,” Hanamaki says, nudging him in the side.

His eyes light up. He grabs at the other’s arm and nuzzles into it. “ _Makki!_ What a gentleman! I want _kinako-bo.”_

“This isn’t a street festival, Oikawa,” Hanamaki snorts, pushing him away. “They don’t sell anything like that here.”

Tooru whines. “Then what _do_ they sell? Pastries? Cakes?”

“ _Tooru,_ ” Hajime chides, leaning forward past Hanamaki, sitting between them, to grab his friend’s attention. “Just because Auntie isn’t here doesn’t mean you can spoil yourself behind her back.”

Tooru’s face twists up like he’d bitten a lemon. “Oh right, I forgot that I have _two_ mothers to nag me _,_ ” he replies tartly.

Hanamaki and Matsukawa both fail to hold back their laughter. Hajime, however, hardly notices. He’s too focused on trying to figure out what meaning there is behind the dark look Tooru is sending him. 

He frowns, tilting his head in confusion and hoping that’ll soften the crease in Tooru’s brow. Instead of an answer, Tooru just turns back to the race, expression cryptic and lips pressed together in a thin line. Fi, back to being a spaniel and napping in a sunbeam behind them, offers Hajime nothing when he looks to her for answers.

He huffs. Fine. If Tooru’s going to be a brat he can sulk in it by himself. 

An elbow pokes into his side. Hajime turns and finds Hanamaki leering at him. “What?”

“She’s neat,” Hanamaki replies, pointing to the gecko still clinging to his neck. “Y’know, we’ve been classmates for a while now and I don’t think you’ve ever told me her name.”

“Mel.” 

“What?”

“Short for Melete,” he mumbles, feeling Mel’s toes anxiously stick-and-unstick to his skin under Hanamaki’s scrutiny. 

“Melete,” Hanamaki says, frowning. He tries it out a few more times. It’s a routine that Hajime’s, admittedly, gotten very used to over the years. “That’s really hard to say.”

“Yeah, tell me something I don’t know,” Hajime grumbles. He relaxes some under the weight of the boy’s stare.

“Sorry to ask all out of the blue, it’s just that for someone who hangs around this guy–“ Hanamaki gestures to Tooru, whose eyes are still stubbornly focused on the racecourse, “–so much, you’re surprisingly… quiet.”

At this Tooru lets out a loud guffaw, never taking his eyes off the leading jockey.

“Not in a ‘you _never_ talk’ kinda way,” Hanamaki amends. “I just mean you just don’t talk about yourself much, do you?”

Hajime ponders over that for a brief second. “I guess?” he replies with a shrug. “What’s there to talk about?”

Matsukawa groans from Tooru’s opposite side. “Booooring.”

Hanamaki’s eyes light up. “Hey, you don’t know. Maybe he just likes being mysterious,” he teases. “Or maybe he’s got some big secret he’s gotta hide.”

“Oh please,” Tooru pipes in absently, eyes never leaving the race. “The only secret Iwa-chan’s got to hide is his creepy obsession with bugs and lizards.” He fake gasps. “Oops, not a secret anymore I guess. Whoops!”

Hajime snorts at Tooru’s weak attempt at an insult. “It never _was_ a secret. Also it’s not creepy. _And_ it’s not an obsession. If anyone knows about obsessions it’s you.”

He expects another snappy retort, but one never comes. Instead, Tooru lets out a light huff and shuffles forward to hunch over his legs. Nothing more. He won’t even turn to look at Hajime, and that’s… well, it’s really _weird_. Hajime leans forward to try to catch his attention. “Tooru?”

In almost eerie tandem, Matsukawa and Hanamaki both turn inward to look over Tooru’s huddled back as he continues gazing intently out at the racecourse and pointedly _not_ at Hajime. There’s a spark in the matching expressions the boys send across Tooru’s shoulder-blades that Hajime suspects is supposed to come off as playful, but with the edges still all too sharp. Like hyenas digging in for scraps, he thinks with a sense of unease.

“ _Obsessions_ , huh? Yeah I can see that.”

“Maybe the real reason Iwaizumi’s so quiet is that he’s just too used to playing second fiddle to our _obsessive_ star-student _Mister Oikawa,_ ” Matsukawa drawls in what Hajime suspects is a mockery of Mr. Dumont’s accent.

Hanamaki leans over to ruffle Tooru’s hair. “Yeah, it must be _soooo_ hard to get a word in edgewise over our little genius here, huh?”

“Jealousy is a really ugly shade on you, Makki,” Tooru says, pushing the offending arm away. It’s a classic Tooru-ism, but there’s a hitch in his voice that makes it sound off. Hajime’s unease grows.

“Guys…,“ he tries.

This time it’s Matsukawa who leans in. “Yeah, I guess I am kinda jealous. Studying doesn’t come as naturally to us _normal_ kids as it does to Shortykawa.”

“So how d’you do it?” Hanamaki says, crowding Tooru's other side. “What’s your secret?”

Hajime feels his hackles rising. Mel’s sticky toes continue to pick at his neck. “Guys, quit it—“

“Lemme guess… private tutors?”

Hanamaki shakes his head in mock sympathy. “No no no, don’t be rude, Mattsun! You think these two have the money for that kind of luxury?” He picks at Tooru’s dusty pant leg. “They’re scholarship kids, and not just _any_ kid gets that kind of of opportunity, right? You’ve gotta be _special_.”

“A diamond in the rough?” Matsukawa adds, grin wide and brow heavy.

“Exactly! What a prodigy! What a headline! Who could resist a story like that!”

“Hey!” Hajime snaps, already reaching over to grab Hanamaki’s shoulder to pull him back. “Seriously, knock it—”

Before anyone else can respond, Tooru shoots up, causing them all to shock still. After a beat, he bends down and slowly gathers up his _geta_ in hand, not turning to face any of them. Hajime might be wrong, but when Tooru straightens he swears he sees a tremor in his friend’s shoulders.

Hajime’s hand hovers limply in the air, half-way to where he’d been ready to take Hanamaki’s shoulder. “Tooru…,” he tries.

Suddenly, Tooru spins around. When he faces them he’s smirking, surprisingly—brows cocked and eyes mocking. Still, his is mouth is tight at the corners. Ready to crack. “I’m tired of waiting on you blabber-mouths for food so _I’m_ just gonna go get some _myself_.”

Hajime stares up at him. “Tooru, what are you talking ab—“

“You can wait here, Iwa-chan. I’ll be fine on my own.”

Even Hanamaki looks perturbed. “Hey, Oikawa, we were just messing around.”

“Yeah,” Matsukawa says, nodding. “We weren’t trying to— “

Tooru laughs, a sharp bark that causes Hajime to wince. “Don’t worry about it, _Mattsun_. You think I really care about your yapping? _Please_. Now, if you’ll _excuse me_.”

He steps forward blindly, causing Matsukawa to scramble and draw his hand into his lap before Tooru's bare foot comes crashing down on top of it. 

The words Hajime wants to say stick at the back of his throat. He’s got to choose his next move carefully, now that he’s faced with one of Tooru’s rare, volatile moods. He moves to stand, “Tooru, wait up—“

“I told you that I’m fine on my own, Iwa-chan,” Tooru croons, falsely cheery as he barrels over Hajime’s words. “Don’t miss me too much, though! Wouldn’t want my _nanny_ to worry about me!”

The sharp, acidic bite of his words almost make Hajime flinch. Head held high, Tooru sweeps past the three of them with the loose kind of grace he’s made himself known for. 

“I’ll be back in a bit, I guess. Try to keep yourselves entertained without me,” Tooru calls over his shoulder, ducking through the tiny window at the back awning. Fiorenza disappears after him, tail tucked deep between her legs.

All Hajime can do is stare after him, really. It’s always hard to figure out what to do when Tooru gets like this. Does he go after him, inviting more of Tooru’s ire and spitting remarks, or does he stay and let him stew in it while most likely getting himself into trouble? 

It’s times like this when the puzzle that is Tooru is less of a tantalizing mystery and more of a frustrating annoyance. Hajime’s fingers curl into fists so tight that his knuckles crack.

Beside him, Hanamaki and Matsukawa have their heads tipped together, speaking to each other in hushed tones. Hajime feels his lip twitch into a snarl.

“Oh would you both just knock it off?” he snaps, causing their low chattering to come to a grinding halt. They both blink owlishly in his direction, but Hajime barrels on. “Are you happy now? Was his reaction as funny as you thought it’d be? The least you could do is not be _total_ asses and quit gossiping about him when he’s not here. That’s fucking _low_.”

To their credit, now that he really looks at the two of them they _do_ seem guilty in the aftermath. Their shoulders are slumped and they’ve curled in on themselves the slightest bit.

Hanamaki’s eyes are trained on the hole Tooru ran off out of when he speaks. “Okay, so… we _might_ have gone too far.”

“But we were just trying to get him to lighten up again. Honest,” Matsukawa says, fingers buried deep in Mami’s fur where she’s curled up in his lap.

Hanamaki nods in agreement. “Yeah. We all know he’s a whiz in the classroom. Thought it’d bring him out of his weird mood to, y’know, puff up that ego of his a bit. Lighten the mood.”

Matsukawa’s normal deadpan is tinged with the slightest bit of concern when he looks up at Hajime. “You know how he usually is. I thought he’d be preening under the attention. Didn’t think it’d set him off like that.”

_Of course it would_ , Hajime thinks sourly. How could they _not_ know how porcelain-thin Tooru’s skin is? 

But then, he tries to remind himself, Matsukawa and Hanamaki have only known Tooru for, what, half a year? How could they know that words like _talent_ and _prodigy_ have always tasted bitter on his tongue? How could they know just how much he’s had to work for the chances he has, unlike them? How could they possibly know about the ever-present thorn their privilege has been in his side, or about how he digs that thorn deeper and deeper into himself every day so he can pretend that its his own?

It’s not surprising, Hajime supposes. They’ve only seen Tooru the genius, not Tooru the brat from _Noge_ who hides away from his anxieties and fears in backwater tree-holes. Not until today, they hadn’t. They just don’t know him like Hajime does. 

Which is why Hajime's already kicking himself for not realizing he should have stepped in sooner. Tooru’s abrasiveness, his jitters, his mouthy behavior amped up to ten… of course it all starts to make sense _now_ , now that the fuse has already been lit. If only he’d stuck around to let Hajime put the flames out.

“Don’t worry about it,” he sighs, a long, ragged thing that feels way older than he has any right to be making at his age. He scratches a hand through his short crop of hair so his itching fingers have something to do. “S’not your fault, I guess.”

Their relief is made obvious by the matching sighs of relief they give. 

“But I’m gonna go find him before he gets himself lost or something,” he supplies, already slipping off his own _geta_ just as Tooru had. He sets them down beside the two boys. “You know him.”

Matsukawa’s eyes still dart away from him guiltily, but he nods. “Sure.”

“Hey, when you find him tell him I owe him a slice of almond cake,” Hanamaki says with an rueful grin. “Though you’d better hurry to get him back or else I’ll just eat it all on my own.”

Hajime feels tired to the bones—already dreading facing Tooru and his sorry state and still a little bit ticked off—but he still offers his own smile back as he gives them both a curt nod.

They’re not bad guys, he thinks as he ducks back through the window and into the hall. They’re smart-ass brats who don’t know when to hold back sometimes, but to be honest isn’t that just a running theme with his choice in friends? It certainly feels like it.

Hajime shimmies out of the crawl-space and back out into the main corridor. Mel, taking a page out of Mami’s book, decides to lead the way, and scurries off up the side of the closest wall. She darts along so quickly and quietly—just a flash of pale green against the white molding—that if it weren't for the ever-present tug of their bond pulling him along he’s sure he’d lose her. 

They dip through hall after hall and up and down stairwells, dodging men in coat-tails and sneaking past white women dressed to the nines in lace. Without his _geta_ clacking through the halls, Tooru is tougher to track down than Hajime would have thought he’d be. Score one for Tooru’s foresight, at least, because if even Hajime can’t find him then the safest bet is that anyone they should be avoiding can’t either. 

There are really only so many doors and halls to get lost in in this place, but every one blends into the next each time they circle around and backtrack to avoid being spotted. It starts to get confusing, and as much as the sneaking around had been fun at first, Hajime’s ready to admit that he’s just about done with the nerves that have come along with it.

“Mel,” Hajime eventually hisses as they pass the same bathroom sign for what he thinks might be the third time. “I think we should try to find our way back.”

She chirrups back, obviously irritated, and continues along the ceiling molding above him. 

“Mel,” he says again, more forcefully.

Still she soldiers on, only glancing over to him for a second before turning the corner ahead. Hajime scrunches up his nose but follows along dutifully with the gentle pull in his chest.

And, really, it’s as simple as that because there at the end of the hall, leaning up against an open window, is Tooru, completely unharmed and with Fi perched beside him in the form of a tiny bluebird. They seem to be talking to each other, but whatever their conversation is about it’s too quiet for Hajime to hear from where he’s standing. There’s a noticeable lack of tension in Tooru’s shoulders as he rocks back and forth on his heels, though, his torso leaning half-way out over the window frame and into the open air. 

Maybe getting himself lost was a good thing if it gave him the time he needed to cool off. 

When a solid ten seconds go by and they still haven’t noticed him standing there watching them, Hajime just… decides to go with it. He leans up against the cut of the wall corner and waits, giving Tooru the space he needs for however long he needs to take it. He can wait, he supposes. 

Besides, watching Tooru like this is… nice? It feels kinda weird to put it that way but it’s the closest he can get to describing the warm, buzzy feeling in his chest. He never really gets the chance to just watch Tooru anymore. If Tooru is getting himself into something, he’s most likely right there beside him being dragged into the mess. For once it’s nice just to be an outside party looking in. It’s nice to watch Tooru look so quiet and at peace. It’s nice that he can just watch and appreciate the way his hair rustles in the breeze like dandelion heads and listen to the smooth, soft timbre of Tooru’s voice whenever it reaches his ears. 

Yeah. It’s nice. 

Suddenly, a loud bark startles Hajime out of his reverie. It shocks Tooru too, and as he swivels around he catches Hajime’s eyes. They stare at each other for a short moment as realization dawns on Tooru before Hajime jerks his head away to look back down the hall. There at the end of it by the stairs is a lean beast of a dog. Its lips are pulled back in a snarl and its fur is an angry ruffle around its stocky shoulders. The only thing holding it back must be its own bond.

“Shit,” Hajime blurts out. He quickly reaches out to scoop Mel off of the wall and press her flat against his neck again. “Tooru, can we jump down from there?” 

Tooru balks, pushing himself away from the windowsill and stepping towards him. “This is the top floor.”

Hajime gulps. He hears a man’s voice and footsteps echoing up from the stairwell, not too far behind the dog. The beast has its eyes locked on Hajime and he can’t look away. “Then I think we’ve gotta run.” 

He hears Tooru pad up beside him. “Wha—?”

“Run!”

He doesn’t give Tooru time to say anything else before he fists his hands in his shirt and yanks him along towards the other end of the hall. From behind them he hears a voice yelling out in harsh English, but it’s too garbled and Hajime’s too panicked to make any sense out of it. More important is the sound of claws clicking on hardwood and teeth snapping not too far behind them.

“Down the stairs!” he yells, shoving Tooru ahead of him to the opening of the door at the end of the hall. Tooru stumbles briefly but regains his balance, catching his hand on the doorframe and whipping himself around it and down the flight with clunky footfalls. His _geta_ clatter in his hands. Hajime rushes behind him. A short burst of wind brushes his face as Fi swoops past both of them down the center of the stairwell. They hurry after her, scrambling to keep themselves from tripping. 

“Down here!” she cries, ducking out through a doorway two floors down. Ahead of him, Tooru hisses, no doubt feeling the tug of her body reaching the end of its limit. He starts to take the steps two at a time to catch up with her, and Hajime follows suit. 

A sharp yelp above them catches his attention, though. He stops briefly, looking up just in time to see the dog rise from the ground and shake itself off. Its paws must have slipped on the wooden flooring and crashed into the doorframe. That was one advantage that they’d have against it, at least, in being barefoot. Not much, though, as the dog shakes its head one more time, snorts, then hurls itself down the stairs after them. Hajime sucks in a sharp breath and pushes forward.

Ahead of him, Tooru rounds the corner and bursts into the next hallway. Hajime pushes off of the last step to gracelessly barrel after him, but his feet don’t land the way he wants them too, making him stumble and crash into the opposite wall. He cries out as his head knocks against it with a painful thud. 

When he opens his eyes, he’s not alone. There are a few ladies and their dæmons clustered against the wall a little ways away from him. They gape at him with eyes blown wide and hands cupped across their mouths. Hajime stares at them blankly for all of a second before he hears Tooru’s voice further down. “Iwa-chan! This way!” he yells, head poking out from a fake Grecian column marking the overlooking balcony to the main hall. Hajime mutters a curse and rushes after him, but not before offering a curt, apologetic half-bow to the women as he passes. 

“Are you nuts?” he hisses when he catches up. The balcony that looms over the main hall has two stairwells leading down to the first floor, mirrored on opposite sides of the hall. The people there might not have noticed them yet, but it’s going to be obvious as soon as they step out past the columns. They don’t blend in well here. “We’ve gotta draw _less_ attention to ourselves, not _more.”_

“You trust me, right?” Tooru says, putting both of his hands on Hajime’s shoulders and looking him dead in the eye.

The lamp-light glinting off of Tooru’s eyes is distracting. There’s blood rushing in his ears and Tooru’s hands are hot through the fabric. “Ah…,” Hajime says, dumbly, “yeah, I guess.”

With a small smirk, Tooru hoists himself up onto the railing behind him and lets go of Hajime. Hajime watches him as he flies down the banister, dumbstruck. _Really?_ That’s what he’d meant?

In the split second that he hesitates to follow, he hears claws clattering on hardwood and looks up just in time to dodge the guard dog’s snapping jaws.

“Shit!” he cries, voice cracking. As the dog steadies itself to go after him again, he all but throws himself onto the railing. Several aghast cries fill the open hall as the guests catch sight of the ruckus. Hajime feels his face begin to flush, a combination of adrenaline and embarrassment, but he keeps his eyes trained on Tooru, who has leapt off of the beam below and is ducking down into a side corridor. 

“Stupid, reckless, dumbass, good-for-nothing—,” Hajime mutters to himself as he fumbles his own landing and stumbles his way past a man in a pretentious top hat and his enormous rodent dæmon.

He catches sight of Tooru waiting by another open door at the end of yet another hallway. He bounces on the balls of his feet when he sees Hajime and waves him over with frantic energy, bottom lip pulled tight between his teeth. Hajime’s legs are on fire but he pushes through the burn to scramble over to Tooru with the last of his energy. 

As he throws himself past the door, tumbling across the floor, Tooru slams it closed and throws the lock shut. 

With his hands still latched around the handle, Tooru collapses against the door, forehead hitting the wood with a dull thud. Hajime does the same, letting his muscles finally relax. Somewhere in between Tooru’s harsh intakes of breath, it almost sounds like he’s laughing. Hajime himself is too tired for that. All he can do is gulp down as much air as he can from his half-sprawl across the ground. 

“It’s not a permanent fix,” Tooru pants. “But I think this window opens out near the low end of the fencing.” He takes a gulp of air. “There’s an open space in the boards. I saw it from upstairs. We can probably get out from there.”

Hajime lets his face fall against the wood floor so he can stare straight at Tooru. “You’re a piece of shit.”

He sends a weak smile back. “I’m a _perceptive_ piece of shit, though.”

Hajime just grunts back. He throws his arm over his eyes, “That guard’s gonna find us sooner or later. You ready to get going?”

“Ready as I’ll ever be,” Tooru laughs hoarsely. He gets up on wobbly legs and makes his way to the window at the other end. “You’re welcome, by the way.”

Hajime lifts the arm away from his face and eyes him skeptically. “Why the hell would I thank you? You’re the one who got us in this mess.”  
  
Tooru throws him a flat look as he proceeds to pull up on the old wooden window. “Well you’re the one who caught their attention.” Fi nods in agreement from his shoulder.

Hajime scowls. “Well… they wouldn’t have found me if you’d just let me come with you.”

“I told you,” Tooru gripes back as he pushes up against the window with a grunt, “You’re not my _nanny_. I would have been fine. I can take care of myself, you know.”

“Yeah, but…,” Hajime trails off. Saying that he’d been worried about him of all things would probably only make Tooru moodier. 

It takes a bit of elbow grease, but Tooru finally manages to get the window open far enough to wedge an arm through the gap. Fi takes the opportunity to shrink down into the body of a squirrel and helps herself through, scampering down the wall ahead of them. “Enough chit-chat, Iwa-chan. You can think of a better comeback later. Help me out.”

As if to emphasize that point, a loud thud rattles the door, followed by a series of barks. Hajime startles. “ **Open the door, you— _“_** He doesn’t understand the rest of what the man behind the door is saying around the angry slur of his words. He has a pretty good idea what they could mean though and, really, he doesn’t want to stick around to find out if he’s right.

With a sigh he resigns himself to dropping the argument and heads over to lend a hand. Fitting himself in beside Tooru, he sticks his arm through the window opening too. With two of them working at it, the wooden frame starts to creak up inch by inch. 

“See, piece of cake. We’ll be out of here in no time,” Tooru says with a grimace, twisting his body to try to get a shoulder up into the gap as well.

Hajime grits his teeth and throws all of his weight into it. A few shoves later and it opens to the point where someone could almost squeeze through. Just a little bit further. 

“Iwa-chan’s so big and burley,” Tooru sing-songs around the obvious strain in his voice. “Who knew it’d actually come in handy like th— _!_ ”

Suddenly, Tooru’s sentence breaks off with a _yell_ , right into Hajime’s face. 

Hajime winces, ducking his head away and sticking his finger down into his ear. “What the hell, did you get a splinter, y’big baby?”

But Tooru doesn’t answer. When Hajime reluctantly looks back, plucking the finger out with a pop, Tooru doesn’t seem to be paying attention to him at all. Instead, his face is turned out past the window, eyes blown wide as they dart after something past where Hajime can see. His hand grips the window frame hard.

“Fi?” he manages to say before suddenly seizing up with a choked gasp. He stumbles and takes a step back. The next thing Hajime knows, he’s crumpling down to his knees, clutching at his chest as his breathing stutters.

Then he _screams_. 

Tooru’s thrown tantrums before. After all, he’s nothing if not a petulant little brat, petty and snobbish in his worst moments. But this… this is nothing like those other times, not even close. The sound that claws its way out of his mouth is raw and primal and it sends Hajime’s heart straight down into his gut. He’s screaming like he _means_ it.

Hajime pushes himself back from the wall, twisting his arm painfully when it doesn’t quite fit through the window opening. Mel leaps off his neck and shifts mid-jump into the tried-and-true form of the _Karafuto-ken_.She skids to the floor in her rush to get over to their friend’s crumpled form. “Tooru?” Hajime asks, kneeling down next to his friend as he writhes against the floor. Mel paces around them nervously. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

Tooru doesn’t answer. More like he _can’t_ give a good answer around the wet gasps and cries that wrack his body. “I-It hu–… _uuu_ rts,” he manages past his hyperventilating sobs. “It hurts i-it… Ha… jim-e… p- _plea_ … _se—_ ”

The last word cuts off on another wailing cry. Hajime panics. His hands hover uselessly in the air above Tooru’s head. 

A series of barks make him jolt. It’s not the guard’s dog, but Mel. His head snaps over to find her with her face shoved through the window opening, frantically trying to get through. Her jaws snap viciously and throw slobber across the other side of the glass panes. 

Sending one last worried glance at Tooru, he scrambles over to the her and that’s when he sees it. 

There’s another guard outside, a good ways off from the window. Beside him sits a proud looking cat, bigger than any kind of cat Hajime’s ever seen before. Clenched between her fearsome jaws is a small, red squirrel. 

For the second time that day Hajime’s blood runs cold. When it boils back, though, it boils back _hot_.

“Hey, you piece of shit!” he yells, throwing himself against the window frame that still stubbornly refuses to move. “Let go of her!”

The man barks something unintelligible up at the window. His voice is a stern, even timbre, and his eyes are hard as steel when they catch Hajime’s. If Hajime weren’t so riled up, he might have cowed under the weight of his gaze, but not today. Not with Tooru writhing on the ground at his feet like he’s on the verge of death.

One sentence from the guard steals Hajime’s attention back. “ **—let her go**.”

He whips back to the window. “What?” 

“ **I told you to bǝʇ poʍu here. Then, I’ll lǝʇ his dæmon go,** **ɐן** **ɹıb** **ɥ** **ʇ? Can’t have N** **ᴉ** **d qɹ** **ɐ** **ʇs like you loʇ ɹnuuıub** **ɐ** **ɹonup this place like ʍı** **ן** **p** **ɐ** **uıɯ** **ɐן** **s.”**

Hajime balks. 

The guard’s brow furrows and spits out what seems like a curse. This time he speaks slower, voice clipped. “ **You. Come down here,”** he points to Fi, limp between the cat’s teeth, **“and I’ll stop. Got it?”**

Hajime is still livid, almost shaking with anger and worry. It’s hard to find the words in English that he wants to use, but he tries. “ **You… make promise?** ” 

The man’s expression doesn’t change, but beside him the large cat takes a step back. Tooru lets out another wail. 

“ _Shit_ ,” Hajime hisses. He sends the guard an absolutely venomous glare before he turns away from the window. 

“Tooru,” he tries, kneeling down next to his friend. He almost reaches out to touch him, but jerks back when Tooru spasms and moans again. “Tooru, you’ve gotta get up.”

“I ca- _an’t_ ,” he chokes out.

“You’ve gotta try or it’s gonna get worse.”

Tooru’s body convulses again. There’s a wet spot beside his head where drool drips from his open mouth. “Ha– _ah–jime…”_

Hajime’s vision goes blurry all of a sudden. Belatedly he realizes it’s because there’s tears gathering in his eyes. The hell? When did that start? He furiously swipes at his face with the back of his arm and curses. “Sorry about this,” he says before ducking down to grab Tooru’s arm and throw it over his shoulder.

Tooru’s breath hitches as Hajime lifts him to his feet. For all that he’d been a stiff, twitching mess on the floor, he goes absolutely limp once he’s off the ground, like a rag doll in Hajime’s arms, only heavier. “Tooru,” he grits out, trying to hoist him up further onto his shoulder. “Can you walk?”

Tooru says nothing. He just keeps on hyperventilating. 

“ _Tooru_.”  
  
As soon as the name is out of his mouth Hajime feels some of the weight lift off of him. Tooru manages to get his feet under him and starts to limp forward. His head is still tipped down to the ground and he has one hand clenched at the center of his chest, but he’s moving.

“Okay, yeah,” Hajime says, matching his steps, making sure he doesn’t fall. “That’s good. Keep going.”

The window is only a few footsteps away, but it feels like ages before they get even close to it. Mel dances anxiously around their feet as they go. Hajime knows she’s desperate to help take some of Tooru’s weight off of him or to offer their friend some form of comfort, but what can she do? Dæmons don’t touch other people, he _knows_ that. It’s taboo. 

_Taboo can just go fuck itself_ , Hajime seethes to himself, but he’s well aware that it’s an empty threat. He knows he can’t bring himself to break that pact, not even now. 

When they reach the window, Tooru collapses against it. His arm braces against the wood so he can smudge his forehead against the glass and look out. Hajime steps up behind him. When he follows his gaze he can see that the guard has stepped even further back, stretching the limits of Tooru and Fi’s bonds. The _bastard_.

“ _Fi,”_ Tooru grits out. “Where is she?”

“The guard’s dæmon has her,” Hajime growls. “But I think the closer we get you to her the less it’ll hurt. I can try to get the window open, okay? Just hold o—”

A cracking thud pulls Hajime’s attention back with a start. When he looks down, Tooru has his entire body pressed against the window, and there are splintered cracks spreading out in the old wood from the center of impact where his shoulder meets it. Before Hajime can say anything, he pushes himself back and slams himself against the wood again, causing it to splinter even further. The glass cracks.

“Tooru, what the hell!”

“I have to get to her.” Another thud and the sound of wood snapping.

Hajime tries to grapple around him to get his hands around the bottom of the window. “Stop it, dumbass, just let me get it open it for you!”

Tooru doesn’t say anything else and he doesn’t move out of Hajime’s way. He digs his bare feet against the floor and pushes. The wood groans and the glass begins to snap until both give way and crack inward. The window crumples, leaving a new, larger opening in its stead.

“ _Tooru!_ You’re gonna hurt yourself, idiot!”

“I’ve got this!” he snaps. “Let me do this!”

Before Hajime can move to stop him, he hoists his torso up onto the ledge and falls through the opening, down to the ground below. His body lands with a soft thud. Hajime pokes his head out of the hole as carefully as he can, avoiding the glass, to see. 

Tooru’s fine, already pushing himself up to his feet, but there’s a tear in his shirt and a thin trail of blood extending down his arm. He winces when he steps forward. Hajime mutters a sharp curse, lip curling.

If Tooru had decided to throw caution to the wind, then so- _fucking_ -be it. Hajime takes a step back and hurriedly shucks his shirt off. He quickly loops it around his hand before throwing a punch at the remaining shards of glass still hanging in the window like jagged teeth. They crumble to the floor and out past the window. When the biggest pieces are good and gone, he hoists himself into the empty space and moves the shirt from his hand to his feet. Only when both are covered and dangling out of the window does he belatedly think to turn around. “Mel!” he barks, arm already extended.

Mel throws her canine body into the air from where she’d been pacing and easily slips back into the form of a gecko. As soon as her sticky feet hit the palm of his hand, he lets himself fall from the ledge.

The loamy soil below is soft enough to dampen the impact of the fall and the shirt tied around his feet is enough to prevent the glass from slicing into the bottoms of his soles. Still, he feels the sharp edges of glass press against the arches of his feet like knives, threatening to tear through the fabric. He hobbles forward, but the shirt is tied too tightly around his ankles for him to actually walk. Ahead of him, Tooru is already limping off towards the guard. Hajime can see the pinpricks of blood dotting the grass in his wake.

His own blood boils. Hajime hastily gets to work untying the shirt from his feet, but in his anxious rage, his fingers can’t seem to get into the tight knot he’d made. As he pulls at the fabric, he hears Tooru ahead of him. 

“ **I am here _,”_** his friend yells at the guard in sharp, biting English. There’s a ragged edge to his voice that betrays the pain he’s probably still fighting.“ **Give me** **Fiorenza.** ”

Hajime looks up, fingers still struggling. The man, still several cautious meters away, stares at Tooru imperviously. His large, black cat dæmon paces back and forth behind him. Her jaws remain tight around Fi as the smaller dæmon frantically shifts between forms. A snake, a weasel, a squirrel again. Each shift seems to drain her resolve further and make the cat clamp her teeth down harder.

“ **How did you get in here?** ” the guard asks, keeping his words slow but voice stone cold.

“Oh, piss off!” Hajime yells, but Tooru’s own response cuts him off.

“ **We climbed the fence,** ” he replies, tone clipped.

“ **And how did you get into the building?”**

“ **There is a window. Downstairs. It is— _was_ … not closed.” **

“ **And how did you know about that?** ”

As Hajime finally starts to get his fingers into the knot, he hears Tooru falter. “ **I did not know. I… tried opening window? I tried many windows. Then, I finded a window open—** Shit, I mean… **I _found_ an open window.** ”

The guard growls, and Tooru lets out another pained grunt, hand flying to his chest. “ **Don’t** **ɟ** **nɔ** **ʞ** **ʍıʇ** **ɥ** **me, qɹ** **ɐ** **ʇ.”** Behind him Hajime can hear Fiorenza’s tinny cries as the cat’s jaws clamp down harder.

“Stop it!” Hajime yells and the shirt slips off of his feet with a final tug. He scoops it up as he scrambles up and makes a dash over towards Tooru. Mel shifts back to the _Karafuto-ken_ and darts ahead of him.

They both stop sharply when they hear Tooru cry out again and watch him crumple to his knees. The momentum from stopping so suddenly makes Hajime stumble and he falls to the ground next to his friend. Mel jumps ahead of them to put herself between them and the man. Tooru’s breathing has gone ragged again and his face is a tacky, salty mess of sweat and tears. Hajime wants to reach out and wipe them all away, but he also kind of wants to charge this bastard before he can hurt Tooru any more. 

“ _Don’t_ ,” Mel hisses, even though her fur is ruffled in a way that shows she’d like nothing better than to do the same herself. 

“ **Why do you do this**?” he yells at the guard instead. “ **We come here. Dæmon let go, you said!** ”

“Stop it, Iwa-chan. Let me talk to him,” he hears Tooru grit out behind him.

“No!” he bites back, falling back into Nipponese. “You can barely fucking breathe, you idiot.”

“I’m _fine_ ,” Tooru hisses. He doesn’t sound fine.

The guard crosses his arms over his chest. “ **I need answers from you first.** ”

Hajime sneers. “ **He gived you answers!** ”

“ **Not the answers I wanted.** ” He comes forward to kneel down in front of Mel, who snaps her jaws in his face but doesn’t move to hurt him otherwise. The man’s dæmon stays a safe distance behind him, probably just enough to keep the soul bond between Fi and Tooru painfully taut. It’s too much of a risk to try anything funny. It’s a threat.

Now face to face with him, Hajime is struck by just how terrifying the guard is up close. His eyes are a cool blue, like ice underneath his bushy blond eyebrows. There’s stubble on his chin, only bare at one spot where a thick, shiny scar curves up his jawbone. But it’s not his appearance that makes their differences stand out. It’s how coldly he regards Tooru writhing at his feet, like he isn’t affected at all by the way the separation from his dæmon is torturing him. It’s how he barely blinks at Mel’s bared teeth where they hover inches away from his face. 

It’s how he looks directly at Hajime like he’s _nothing_ to him. 

“ **You ɯnsʇ think I’m a p** **ɐ** **ɯu** **ɟ** **ool if you think I’m going to qǝl** **ᴉ** **ǝʌǝ you ɔ** **ɐ** **ɯǝ here** **ɾ** **nsʇ to see the horses,”** he says, voice not even wavering. **“So I’m going to tell you once: hand over ʍ** **ɥɐ** **ʇǝʌǝɹ it is that you two sʇolǝ.”**

Hajime stares right back and says, “ **I can’t understand your words. Say again.** ”

The man’s brow hardens. “ **I asked: what did you take? Money from the sʇ** **ɐ** **ups? Billfolds?** **Ɔ** **oɯǝ ou,** **ʞᴉ** **p, I’ve sǝǝu this before. I know what** **your kind are like.”**

Hajime fixes him with the nastiest look he can muster, shaking both out of anger and fear. “ **We taked nothing.”** Then, at the man’s skeptical expression, “ **It’s truth!** ”

A distant, familiar howl echoes out from the other side of the Grandstand, making Hajime’s blood run cold. The guard seems to notice. “ **That’d be** **Ǝ** **ɹuǝsʇ and** **פ** **ǝɹʇ** **ᴉ** **ǝ. If you’ve** **ƃ** **oʇ** **ɐ** **u** **ʎ** **sǝusǝ you’ll give everything you took oʌǝɹ to me before they get here.** ”

Hajime shakes his head in frustration. “ **We don’t take anything!** ”

Suddenly the guard’s hand reaches over to grab Hajime roughly by the shoulder. Mel seems to snap at his side, letting out a fierce storm of barks as she tries to butt herself between the two of them. 

“Don’t!” Hajime yells at her. _Don’t bite him,_ he thinks, _don’t do anything that could make him hurt you or Fi or Tooru. I can handle this!_   


The guard’s voice goes gravely stern, “ **H** **ɐ** **up it oʌǝɹ.** ”

Hajime tries not to cower away from him. “ **We have not money!”**

Tooru calls out again, voice thin and reedy out of panic or pain, but Hajime can’t exactly tell. **“** I can deal with this by myself!”  
  
“Shut up!” Hajime yells, turning his head to the side as far as it can go so he can glare back at Tooru. “You’re just going to hurt yourself!”

“That’s not fair!”

“I don’t give a shit!”

The man’s hand tightens. “ **What’s he saying, huh?”**

Hajime whips back around to face him. “ **He is not saying anything! I tell to you we have nothing!”**

His fingers dig into his bare skin and press painfully deep into the soft juncture between the bones. “ **Don’t** **ɟ** **nɔ** **ʞᴉ** **u** **ƃ** **lie to me!** ” Behind them, Tooru lets out another pained sob.

“ **Stop, please _stop!_ ”**

Suddenly, the guard sucks in a sharp breath and his hand tightens. Hajime fears he’s reeling up to do something, but surprisingly the man doesn’t make another move. It takes a moment, but eventually he registers a deep yowl coming from the large cat dæmon over the man’s shoulder. In the same moment, Tooru sucks in his own deep, gasping breath beside Hajime—desperate like a drowning man surfacing from the water.

What follows all happens too fast for Hajime to process. First, the man’s hand slackens just enough for Hajime to shoulder his way out of his grip. Then there’s a blur of color racing by beside him, followed by a laughing sob at his back. The guard yells out what sounds like a curse before something comes flying over Hajime’s head, hitting the guard square in the forehead with a dull, hollow crack. 

The guard stumbles out of his crouch and falls back against the ground with his hands pressed to his bruising forehead. Next to him lies a worn, wooden _geta_. There’s another not too far off from him sitting next to the giant cat, who is shakily pushing herself to her feet a little ways off.

Her jaws are empty.

Hajime takes a shaky step backwards. “Fi?” he murmurs, mind racing but unable to catch up with what just happened. 

“Hajime!” He turns sharply down to Mel, who has grabbed onto his pant leg and is attempting to tug him back. “ _Run_.”

She takes off and he hastily moves after her, still dazed. The fence surrounding the Grandstand is only a little ways away, but–… _there_ , up ahead he can see one bloodied feet disappearing out from under the hole in the fence. 

So the blur… had that been Fi _?_

A laugh rises out of him, startling him as he slides to the ground in front of the hole. She’d gotten out? How? He thinks back to the _geta_ that looked suspiciously like his own. The pair that he’d left with Hanamaki and Matsukawa. But how had…? 

He looks up to the Grandstand. It’s hard to see with the sun glaring off of the rows of windows, but when he squints Hajime can see a hand waving from behind an open one on the second floor. Hanamaki’s shit-eating grin flashes in the sunlight. Next to him is Matsukawa. “I know his aim is incredible, but stop gawking and get the hell out of here,” he calls, pointing off past Hajime out towards the Bluff. “We’ll find you tomorrow.”

Hajime shakes his head incredulously but he can’t stop the grin pulling wild across his face. He throws them a‘two-fingered salute’ and pushes himself through the hole with the sound of their laughter following after him. 

Just beyond the fence is a small ledge that curves down into a valley of trees. Hajime doesn’t see Tooru immediately, but he does see small smears of blood on the grass. 

That puts an immediate damper on his adrenaline-fueled mood. The smile falls from his face. Ahead of him, Mel already has her nose to the path, so he slips his torn-up shirt back on and falls into step behind her. 

The sounds of the races fade out to a low murmur the further down the hill Hajime and Mel head. As they go he steadies himself on the low saplings that sprout up out of the ground at angles from the slope. It’s surprising that Tooru made it so far ahead of him if his feet had been in bad enough shape to be still bleeding. Mel bumps her head into his thigh, as though she were feeling the same thing. Hajime frowns but keeps going.

The makeshift path opens up in a small patch of grass in between a few tall maple trees. There, curled up in the dappled sunlight with his back against one of the smaller ones, is Tooru. He has his head ducked against his knees and out from between his huddled arms droops a long, white-tipped tail. Beside him are his blood-slick _geta_. Mel bounds over to them, but Hajime falters.

“ _Shit_ , Tooru,” is what spills out of Hajime’s mouth first at the sight of Tooru’s feet. He sees his friend’s shoulders tense for a second, but he only buries his face further into his arms. Hajime swallows. “Is Fi…?”

The tail twitches sluggishly in the dirt in response. He feels some of the tension in his body seep out of him and he lets out a laugh, or more a sigh of relief than anything. Mel wags her tail, also seemingly pleased as she sniffs in curious circles around the two of them. 

“I can’t believe that fucking worked,” Hajime groans as he slumps down in front of Tooru and sprawls out across the dirt. “If this hadn’t been kind of their fault I could kiss those two jerks for saving our hides. Mama’s gonna be pissed at me for leaving my shoes behind, though.”

He expects Tooru to say something snooty at him, either about their asshole friends or Hajime’s own recklessness, but nothing comes. The silence stretches out, only broken by the crying of a crow overhead. 

Hajime lifts himself up onto an elbow, eyeing them. They don’t look any different, but Mel has stopped pacing. Her tail isn’t wagging anymore either. She looks between Hajime and them with anxious glances. 

Hajime feels his brow furrow. “Tooru, are you okay?”

Again, nothing. This time, though, he can see the faint tremble in Tooru’s shoulders.

Hajime sits up and moves in to lay a hand on his shoulder, “Hey, Tooru…”

The reaction he gets is lightning-fast. Tooru’s arm whips out to knock his own away, the sharp slap of skin-on-skin stinging like a lash across his wrist.

Hajime recoils, “What the hell—?“

“ _Tooru—!”_ Mel yelps, hopping back with her tail raised.

“Don’t touch me!” Tooru shouts, wincing back and cradling the bundle of fur tighter to his chest. His voice is hoarse and raw. There’s fear in his expression and a fire building up behind his watery eyes. A stunning paradox. “I’m fine,” he bites out a moment later, huddling further into himself.

Hajime frowns. “Obviously you’re _not_. Come on, Tooru, I just wanna check your feet.”

When Hajime moves forward again, Tooru just pushes himself further back. His bottom and heels skid through the dirt, leaving red trail marks along the ground. He won’t look up from where his head is buried deep in the scruff of Fiorenza’s neck. “I’m _fine_. S-Stop _calling_ me that!”

Hajime blinks, pausing. “Stop calling you what?”

“ _Tooru_ ,” he seethes, looking up. The tears roll down the slopes of his cheeks and leave angry, salty streaks in their wake. “W-Why can’t you just call me by my proper name, like—like the teachers and Makki and Mattsun and everyone else do?”

Hajime is struck dumb for a second or two. Even Mel doesn’t seem to have anything to say. “Wha… what does that have to do with _anything_?” he snaps, voice jumping in volume and pitch with how lost he is. “You call me stupid nicknames all the time!”

“It’s different!”  
  
“How is it any different?”

“It just _is_!”

“That’s not an answer!”

“It is because you say it so _patronizingly_!” Tooru snaps. “You say it like I’m a… an idiot! A _nuisance!_ ”

The bite of his words stops Hajime in his tracks. He blanches, “What? No I don’t.”

“Yes, you do! Stop treating me like I’m a stupid _kid!_ ” he spits back.

“I’m not!” Hajime retaliates. He knows he shouldn’t be firing back like this, but he can’t help it. He feels stubbornly defensive in the face of Tooru’s sudden verbal attacks. “I… I’m just trying to _help_. Why are you freaking out about this _now_?”

The second round of tears Tooru had been so desperately trying to hold back spill over fat and angry down his cheeks. They pool at the upturned crease in his lip where his snarl cuts jagged across his face. “Why _not_ now, huh?” His words whip-crack out of him with the intent to sting. “When would be _better_ for you? You already try to tell me what to do every damn second of my life, are you gonna tell me how I should _feel_ now, too?”

“I’m not…” Hajime cuts him off, scrambling to find the right thing to say. “D-Don’t put words in my mouth!” 

“You’re not my mother! You don’t have to tell me what to do and _protect_ me all the damn time! It’s not like I ever asked you to!”

Hajime fumes. “That’s not it! _Dammit_ , why are you being so… _argh!_ ” He lets out a loud, frustrated growl. At least he intends to. What comes out is more like a whine than anything. His hands fly up into his short hair, fingers kneading into his skull so he can take out his frustrations somewhere without throttling Tooru. That wouldn’t solve anything, _obviously_. 

So he tugs at his hair and tries to think rationally, tries to figure out the right thing to do or say, how to put into words why he gripes and worries and wants and—

“I don’t know, okay!” he barks out, and right as it leaves his mouth he feels the fight just drain right out of him. Like a stopper being pulled out of place, all the anger and confusion and frustration he’d been overflowing with just spill out. Suddenly he’s not mad or hurt or anything. He’s just… 

Well, Tooru is a puzzle he thought he knew inside and out. This weird whiplash of suddenly being caught off guard and feeling like he doesn’t know what to do—of learning there are these thoughts and feelings festering under Tooru’s skin that he’d never let Hajime know about—has left Hajime feeling... 

Hollow. Hurt. Tired.

He breathes in and out a few more times, feeling his shoulders sag with each ragged inhale. “I don’t know, I…” he says, nothing but a low growl compared to the explosiveness of before. “…sorry.”

Tooru doesn’t respond. The only sound to be heard in their little corner of the world is Hajime’s own breathing and the occasional sniffle from the tightly-curled ball that is now Tooru. 

The day continues on bright and sunny around them. The sounds of the racecourse occasionally filter in from beyond the ridge that looms over them. The atmosphere feels entirely backwards and wrong for this weird and sudden confrontation between them. Especially when, even in the sticky mid-September remnants of summer heat, Tooru can’t seem to stop shivering like a newborn foal. 

It’s funny, in a way, but they’ve never actually fought before. At least not like this. They bicker and tease each other to death, but they never really _fight_. This isn’t something that Hajime has a playbook for, to refer back to. Hajime can’t just _fix_ this. Tooru’s always had his pride and he’s always bristled at Hajime’s mothering, but this is different. Now Hajime can’t even force his way in through Tooru’s moods like he has in the past. Not when he’s looking like he is now. So _vulnerable_. 

All he can really do is sit and watch as his friend curls in on himself as though he could blink right out of existence if he tried hard enough.

And it… it _sucks_ —it really does—that he doesn’t have a single clue as to what he should do.

So he does the one thing he can do. Tooru’s leg is still laid out limply in front of him where he’d been kicking and fussing earlier, so Hajime lifts it up and sets it in his lap. Thankfully, Tooru seems too worn out to protest. 

Hajime tears the sleeve off of his already ratty, torn up shirt and starts to clean up Tooru’s dusty, bloody foot. When he finishes with the one, he moves on to the next one. Every so often he peeks up, but always finds Tooru’s face buried deep in Fi’s burnt-clay fur. 

“We need to get out of here,” he eventually mutters, several minutes and several false-starts later as he ties the final knot of his makeshift bandage. 

He doesn’t get a response initially and the silence stretches on long enough to make him itchy with nerves. 

As he opens his mouth to try again, Tooru comes back to life, muffled by the canvas material of his pants. “Fine. Go.”

“I’m not leaving here without you, idiot,” he replies, lowering his voice to as soft a tone as he can manage. Mel inches forward, snout hovering far enough away so as not to startle Tooru but close enough to sate her curiosity.

Tooru just hunches his shoulders further up to his ears.

Hajime soldiers on. “I don’t want those bastards to find us again. They could still be looking, so we should probably get a move on.”

There’s a sniffle, but nothing more.

Hajime feels his shoulders tense up again, frustration rising unbidden. He gently pinches Tooru’s calf. “C’mon, I know you’re listening. I’ll drag you home if I have to. Don’t be a brat.”

Nothing.

Hajime’s still an Iwaizumi though—stubborn to the core—and he can only take so much. He feels his lip curl again, “ _Toor—_ “

Mel cuts him off with a sharp nip at his ankle. _Dammit_. He almost swears out loud, but her soft, wet eyes stop him.

They both know there’s an easier solution to this problem, but it feels weird. Sudden. Stupid and wrong. Hajime swallows, hands fisting in his lap. 

“ _Oikawa,”_ he says.

His friend’s head darts up. Some of his unruly bangs are plastered to his face, stuck in the tear-tracks. It’d be funny in any other circumstance, but not today. Tooru’s eyes are saucer-wide and unreadable as they stare up at him, and Hajime can’t help but fidget under the scrutiny. 

It’s not like they need to make more of a moment out of this than it really is. Because really, it’s not that big of a deal. 

It’s _not_.

“Oikawa,” he says again, weightier. “Please.”

Tooru— _Oikawa_?—is going to make a mess of his lip if he keeps gnawing at it like that. Eventually he nods and slowly pushes himself to his feet feet with a wince. When he’s upright, he looks into Hajime’s eyes again. There’s a new sureness in his gaze, something a little stiff and a little grim. There’s something a little thankful in it, too, or maybe apologetic? It’s hard to say. 

Hajime tries to swallow down the sourness on the back of his tongue and reciprocate it. “You good to walk?”

His friend sniffs, passing it off as something haughty to hide any lingering weakness from before, and hikes Fiorenza’s rump up so she can curl herself more easily into his collarbone. “I’m _fine,”_ he says, slipping his _geta_ on one at a time. “Don’t worry so much. You’ll get wrinkles.”

Hajime just nods, falling into step behind him. Mel moves quietly at his heels, bumping her head against his calves every so often. 

They don’t talk as they slowly stalk out of the Bluff, or all the way through _Kotobukicho_. They remain silent as they cross the _Ooka_ river, and as they slink back into their humdrum lives in _Noge_. 

When they reach the line of the trees where they usually head their separate ways, Hajime clears his throat, causing his friend to slow to a stop. He blinks, as if coming out of a daze. “Oh. _Oh._ Well, I guess that’s it for today.”

“Yeah,” Hajime says, trailing off. He scuffs at the dirt with his toes and nods at Tooru’s feet. “Get those cleaned up, okay? And I’ll, uh, see you tomorrow, right?” He tries to offer up a small half-smile and a wave. He has a feeling it looks terrible.

Tooru parrots the motion, passing it off better than Hajime, but not by much. “Of course! Those educators from Kanagawa Preparatory School will be coming by so you’re not allowed to slack off!”

“You’re the one who always sleeps in.”

“But you always come by to pick me up anyway, so what does it matter if I get a few more minutes of rest.”

Hajime’s lips tug up again, half-baked and still unsure. “I’ll leave you behind next time.”

“Keep telling yourself that, Iwa-chan!”

And with that, the boy deems the conversation finished. He turns on his blood-stained heel and hobbles off, down the long road towards his own home. Even with the painful looking limp, he nevertheless manages to keep his head held high. 

Just before he disappears around the bend, Hajime catches Fiorenza’s brown eyes staring at him knife-sharp over the crest of her boy’s shoulder, but only for a second. Then they’re both gone.

Standing under the dappled shade of a yellowing maple, Hajime can’t help but feel _off_. Uprooted _._ He lets out a ragged sigh, crouching down against the rough bark of the tree. He kicks a stone away and then anxiously scrunches his bare toes into the dirt. 

Well… now what? 

Nothing feels fixed up at all. Is he just supposed to carry on tomorrow like it never happened? Like Tooru didn’t almost have the life ripped right out of him? Like Hajime didn’t almost have to watch it happen? 

Hajime thought… well, he thought he was more important than that. He thought Tooru _trusted_ him enough to let him know when things were wrong—to let him in or to let him _help_. Apparently not. He couldn’t even tell Hajime all those stupid little thoughts that had been eating him up inside until they’d exploded out of him in one, razing burst. What a way to figure that out. 

It’s irrational and frustrating and… _heartbreaking_. Is that the right word? No, it doesn’t really sound quite right. He digs his fingers into his temples and sighs, again.

But, well… what else can he do? He has a feeling he knows how this will end going in the morning. Too—no, _Oikawa_ will stumble out of his house late, smiling like nothing is the matter, but the distance will still be there, no doubt. He’ll build his defenses back up—leaving Hajime stranded on the other side, most likely—and paint over all the cracks in his ego, as though Hajime won’t see through them anyway. 

Still… eventually he’ll come back to Hajime, right? He’ll open up for real, right?

…Who knows. Maybe tomorrow that distance will feel less like a crevice cracking open between them. Maybe life will re-right itself and things will just… go back to normal. Maybe his roots will plant themselves down again so he can feel sturdy again. So _both_ of them can, maybe.

Or maybe that’s just growing up.

 

 

 

 

_You are fifteen years old when you see her change for the last time._

 

 

 

 

Laughter peals out across the Academy’s library and with a heavy sigh Hajime rises up from his chair to follow it. He shoves the book he’d been looking over back into its place with far more force than necessary. The shelf groans in protest. If he weren’t a _respectable_ person (unlike _someone_ ), he’d probably do the same.

The sound of laughter doesn’t stop even as he makes his way out of the 900s and ducks down into the 500s. It filters in like sunlight through stacks of leather bound books and across dusty shelves, falling into an easy rhythm with the clicking of Melete’s claws across the hardwood at his feet. 

When Hajime reaches him, Oikawa is precariously balanced on the back two legs of his chair, his own two legs flung without care across the table in front of him and Fiorenza curled up in his lap. When his eyes catch Hajime’s, another bout of laughter overtakes him, more loud and obnoxious than the last. The book resting on top of his knees—a heavy tome of some sort—threatens to fall, so Hajime stomps over to intervene it before it can.

“Can you act your age for once?” he grits out between clenched teeth. In one smooth movement he kicks the chair back onto all fours and scoops the book up from Oikawa’s flailing arms. 

“Excuse you, Iwa-chan,” Oikawa retorts once he’s regained his balance. Fiorenza, startled out of her nap, looks almost more put-out than Oikawa himself. “I was being _very_ mature and studious before _you_ rudely interrupted me.”

Hajime throws him an unimpressed look over the top of the leather-bound text as he starts to skim its contents. The more he scans, however, the deeper the crease in his brow becomes. The text, he soon realizes, is entirely in Dutch. “What the hell is this?” he asks, going for sarcastic but the curiosity creeps into his tone.

“ _Systema Naturae_.” Oikawa enunciates every foreign syllable with all of the confidence of a native speaker. Which, in some ways, he is. Hajime’s wants so badly to believe he’s butchering the pronunciation, but he’s not the one who stitched an identity for himself out of a patchwork pattern of languages, is he?

Rolling his eyes, Hajime begins to flip through the pages. Paragraph upon paragraph of Roman letters stare back at him between diagrams of rodent skulls and teeth molds. The words are just close enough to English to feel familiar but foreign enough that his mind can’t make a lick of sense out of them. “What was so funny about this?”

Oikawa clucks his tongue and plucks the book from his hands. “Well nothing now that you’ve lost my place.” He carefully places the book down on the table’s edge and starts through it. With one hand he flips the pages, and with the other he gently ruffles his fingers into the grey scruff of Fiorenza’s neck. Her thick, bushy tail sways against his leg, obviously pleased with the attention. Hajime tracks the lazy movement with his eyes and idly wonders if it counts as some form of narcissism if the only being you ever selflessly dote on is an extension of your own psyche.

“Aha!” Oikawa exclaims, breaking Hajime away from that train of thought. Oikawa’s eyes are bright with mischief as he slides the book across the table towards him. “Top of the left page.”

Hajime grabs the corner of the leather cover and pulls it the rest of the way. 

_Meles meles,_ the section reads beside a diagram that bears a striking resemblance to the mound of fur currently curled-up down at his feet. 

Hajime’s eyes go wide and he draws the book closer to his face with careful fingers. The short legs, the flat plane of the head, the dark smears of black around the eyes like kohl—something months in the making seems to slot into place. He traces every minute detail of the grainy photograph with reverent touches. Distantly, he feels the warm body rise from atop his shoes before two clawed paws come to rest at the edge of the table next to him with a dull thud.

“Mel,” he says, awestruck, though it chokes out of him on barely a whisper. 

Laughter bubbles out of Oikawa again. Fiorenza, now more awake, joins in with him. “ _Meles meles_!” he crows. “Talk about a self-fulfilling prophecy! There’s no way that old goat could have known, right? _No_ way.”

“Oh it’s certainly impossible!” Fiorenza squeals, eyes narrowed in mirth. She rolls over in Oikawa’s lap as his hands massage into her underbelly. “To think Auntie and Ryohaku would fate poor Mel to such a stumpy-dumpy form!” 

An affected gasp. “ _Fi_ , you churlish little devil! How did I raise you to be so rude!” 

“I could say the same for you, _Tooru_!”

A thousand insults come to mind over the sounds of their giggling, but every single one seems to catch at the sudden clench of Hajime’s throat. Even Mel seems unruffled by the usual taunts and insults. Her nose presses cold and wet to the underside of his wrist and everything seems to spill over. He smoothes his hand over the top of her head. “No, I mean…,” words stick in his throat. “It’s _Mel._ ” 

He’s horrified to hear the thick choke of his voice. Immediately his eyes shoot up, certain his blunder will be the next target of Oikawa’s antics. 

Yet, despite who it is he’s dealing with, Oikawa meets him instead with a smile. The taunts are gone and the tilt of his lips is surprisingly earnest. He nods slowly, eyes looking shinier than usual, and pushes another book across the table towards Hajime, one he hadn’t noticed before. 

This time the text is mostly German, but he doesn’t need long-winded descriptions when the accompanying picture speaks volumes. _Urocyon cinereoargenteus,_ the subtitle reads.

“Gray fox,” Oikawa says, eyes bright. “That’s what she’s called. She’s a gray fox.” Fiorenza winds her way under his arm and to the crest of his shoulders, where she preens proudly in the dusty sunlight. The light turns her ears a bright ochre and the black stripe of her tail loops protectively across the pale cut of Oikawa’s neck. 

_Beautiful_ , Hajime thinks, mind strangely unfiltered in this small, private moment shared between them. He barely notices himself thinking it.

He looks down to the small head cupped in the palm of his hand. Melete stares up at him with warm, brown eyes as he tangles fingers into her long, grey fur. “European badger.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay yeah so my choices of Gray Fox and European Badger are probably not very surprising but listen... [it had to be done](http://metro.co.uk/2018/04/20/abandoned-fox-cub-adopted-by-orphaned-baby-badgers-at-animal-sanctuary-7482669/) (even though that's a red fox which is an entirely different genus but still)
> 
> Also: if anyone was wondering, the portion of this fic's setting & design inspiration that _wasn't_ taken straight from HDM was definitely based off of Nuri Kazuya's designs for the Dai Gyakuten Saiban series. Please just drown me in that entire game's reimagined Meiji Era / Industrial Revolution 2.0 aesthetics ♡( ૢ⁼̴̤̆ ꇴ ⁼̴̤̆ ૢ) ♡
> 
> Also also: I tried to go for accuracy when it came to all of the mistakes Iwaizumi and Oikawa made in English, so they were all based on common mistakes made by my own students when they write in English. I tried to write in a way that wouldn't cause offense, but if you feel otherwise please let me know!


	3. 1901〜1902

_You are seventeen years old and the world cupped within your hands seems impossibly small._

 

 

 

Miss Edwards is a sight to see by both European and Nipponese standards, but it’s not her porcelain skin or thin waist that cause her to stand out at the table. It’s the air of delicate sophistication and _savoir faire_ that glows around her like a halo, effortless and unattainable. Her pigeon-breasted bodice is impeccably laced in fine ribbons and her strawberry-blonde hair is done up in a carefully coiffed pompadour, within which nests a beautiful, iridescent blue swallow. 

The name of the hairstyle remains at the forefront of Hajime’s mind only because her lips had curled around the word so prettily as she’d bent forward to speak it into Oikawa’s ear. 

At present, Oikawa tucks a loose strand of hair behind her ear with hooded eyes and Hajime wants to gag. Melete, lingering innocently under the table digs a claw into his exposed tabi, as though she knows. _You need to play nice,_ the sharp prick seems to convey, though he’s certain she can’t stand the opulent dinner conversation any more than he can.

“ **I’m sorry to say, Miss Edwards** ,” Oikawa purrs, pronunciation as smooth as silk, “ **but I don’t believe your story for one moment.** ”

“ ** _Honest,_ I would swear it on my grandfather’s grave!**” Her laughter rings out like a wind chime. “ **The dingy tipped right over in the middle of the harbor and I had to swim the entire way back to the dock, bustle and all!** ”

Oikawa lets out an affected gasp _,_ bringing a hand up to his rounded mouth. “ **How dreadful. How did you _ever_ manage to make it all the way to shore**?”

_“_ ** _Well_** _.”_ She lowers her voice and leans further into Oikawa’s shoulder. _“_ **Don’t go telling my mother, but I learned to swim some years ago in the lakes by Jordan College. I insisted my brothers teach me when she and father were vacationing in Marseille, and believe me, I can be very persuasive when I need to be.** ” 

“ **Quite a little deviant, aren’t you Miss Edwards**?” 

“ **Oh, Mr. Oikawa, please**!”

Hajime is vividly reminded of the local Seminary girls that he always sees huddled by the import shop in town, their heads buried in Brytish weeklies. Ms. Edwards fits the part of the Gibson Girls emblazoned across every one of those editorials to a T, and Oikawa is every bit the part of the European socialite to match her. He wears this second skin of his as though it were tailor-fit to him, and as long as he keeps the entire room charmed into believing this high-class aristocrat is as real as they come, it doesn’t matter how fake the façade is, Hajime supposes.

Yes, this is Oikawa Tooru at seventeen: a proud specimen of the merits of the Restoration and of the soon-to-be Anglo-Nippon alliance, not the son of a poor fish monger who just happened to be in all the right places at all the right times. At least not for tonight.

Hajime lowers his eyes to the dinner spread and tries to hide his frown. Even he’s got to admit that Oikawa cuts a fine figure at the table. His nearly impeccable English as natural to him as breathing, chestnut hair perfectly swept to the side, _gakuran_ buttoned and pressed to crisp perfection. He has every single one of them fooled, and to anyone who didn’t know any better he might even seem to be fooling himself. 

Hajime snorts under his breath. Yeah, if only he were _ever_ able to do that, but he knows Oikawa better than Oikawa might even know himself. He knows the work that goes into creating the image of Oikawa the Socialite. He knows the tight pull of Oikawa’s upper lip and the calculating, analytical sharpness in his eye better than his own reflection. This Oikawa is a sheep in wolf’s clothing, desperately employing every trick in his book to ensure he won’t be caught and devoured by his carefully crafted lies of necessity. 

And tonight, Hajime reminds himself, they are _very_ necessary. 

He takes a careful sip from his sake glass.

 

( _The scene is this: late April. Rain-thick breeze through cracked open windows. He and Oikawa both resting on opposite sides of the dormitory room, admitting truths into the darkness that always felt safe outside of daylight._

_‘It’s too claustrophobic here, Iwa-chan,’ he’d said in a voice that had tried so hard to be knife sharp and sure. It was too bad that Hajime always knew how to find the cracks._

_Sleep weary, Hajime had grumbled about dormitory policies and morning classes._

_‘Not the room.’ Oikawa had breathed his response like a secret, and that gave it so much more weight. ‘Yokohama. Nippon. It’s stifling. I can’t stay here forever. I’m so much more than this.’_ )

 

Oikawa’s life, Hajime thinks as he gracelessly spears a stalk of asparagus with his fork, has always been a series of puzzles and games. Sometimes such banal ones as flirting with the Seminary girls at the school’s gates until their fingers twisted demurely into their _hakama_ and their faces flushed pink. Other times ones of finely tuned tactic and survival. As much as tonight seems like the former, Hajime knows without a doubt that Oikawa is elbow-deep in playing the latter.

Across the dinner table from him, Oikawa takes his napkin and dabs it coyly at a spot of sauce at the corner of Miss Edward’s lip. She laughs prettily and swats at his hand. In the seat beside her, Montgomery Edwards, founder of Vicarian Air and owner of the largest fleet of airships this side of the Ural Mountains, throws a dry smile in his daughter’s direction and takes another sip of his wine. He will return to Jordan College in a week’s time, Marjorie with him, but not without signing the papers solidifying the Mission exchange set to happen between their preparatory school and Jordan College. Nine spots to fill, sixteen current guests. Tonight’s dinner is as much a decadent sendoff as it is a competition to vie for the man’s attentions and affections. Naturally, that also means vying for those of his daughter.

It’s exactly the sort of contest Oikawa always excels at, but Hajime? _Laughable_. He ducks his gaze down from Oikawa’s simpering smile before he gives in to the urge to kick him under the table. Biting his tongue, he swallows down the last stalk of asparagus along with his irritation.

Just then, a small whistling sneeze catches his attention from across the table. Fiorenza—draped across Oikawa’s neck like an animate stole—poses in a way that probably appears decadent to the common onlooker, but then Hajime has known her for close to ten years now. It’s not hard (for him at least) to notice the dramatics, the overblown _ennui_ dripping from her, and even harder not to read into what that might imply about Oikawa’s own attitude towards tonight’s affairs. Hajime wills himself to fight the small conspiratorial smile that threatens to break out as she sourly bats at one of Oikawa’s flyaway strands of hair and snuffles into his collarbone. 

_That makes two of us,_ he thinks to himself as he spoons a portion of the stew in front of him. 

Just as he draws the spoon up to his mouth as carefully as he can, Fi manages to catch his eye over the lip of it. The look she sends is so melodramatic and _piteous_ that he can’t help but snort broth all over his upper lip. 

Across the table comes a gasp. Hajime has a single moment to be thankful that it’s not one of their esteemed guests, but the relief doesn’t last long.

“Iwa-chan!” Oikawa says, voice pitched up in mockery. “What a mess you’ve made! Having trouble over there?”

Hajime glares daggers at him as he yanks the napkin from his lap and wipes away the mess. In the most polite sounding voice he can muster up he replies in crisp Nipponese, “I’d shove this spoon down your throat if I could.”

Somewhere a few seats down he hears half-muffled snorts coming from what must be Hanamaki and Matsukawa. One of the instructors mutters a low and reprimanding “ _Iwaizumi_ -kun” from across the table.

Ms. Edwards reaches a hand up to lightly tug at Oikawa’s suit-jacket sleeve. She gazes up at him with curiosity. “ **What? What did he say to you that was so funny?** _”_

Hajime goes rigid. Naturally, Oikawa’s round, honey-brown eyes are crinkled at the corners from grinning so wide and Hajime wants nothing more than to reach over the table to clamp his mouth shut.

“ **Well! _Mister_ Iwaizumi _—“_** he says the name with obvious glee” _—_ **just gets _so_ skittish when he’s nervous. The poor thing shakes like a baby deer in the presence of lovely ladies such as yourself, isn’t that right?** _”_

Hajime grunts and arranges the napkin back across his lap, refusing to rise to the bait or provoke Oikawa further. 

“ **Oh, how dreadful,** _”_ Ms. Edwards coos at him. “ **Are you having trouble with the tableware, dear?** _”_

He turns his gaze on her, fixing her with a flat, hard scowl. “ **Do you think I don’t know how to use a spoon?** _”_

That causes her to start. After a moment—had she expected a response from him at all?—she reins in her expression and softens. She speaks slowly, deliberately so. “ **I only meant that I… _sympathize_ if you’re not used to them. I had the most _awful_ time wrapping my head around those silly sticks you use when I first arrived. There’s a learning curve for everything, you know.”**

Hajime takes a moment to just look at her: the innocent bat of her lashes, the patronizing curve of her delicate smile. 

“ **Well** **I’m sure I had an ‘awful time’ as well when I was four, but we also have spoons here in Nippon, if you didn't know.** ” He punctuates the point by taking a large, hearty mouthful of stew.

Ms. Edwards flushes, causing the rosy hue of her rouge to grow patchy at the edges. Beside her, Oikawa looks absolutely shocked stupid, eyes wide and mouth hanging ajar.

“ _Iwaizumi-kun_ ,” comes the strained reprimand from their instructor, again.

“ **My… apologies _,_** ” Ms. Edwards follows with hesitance, looking more than a little confused. 

With the irritation mostly simmered away, Hajime nods, short and curt, all too happy to go back to his meal and to fade into the background of the conversation. 

Montgomery Edwards, however, seems to have other plans. “ **Mister… Iwaizumi, was it _?_** ” The man’s voice is a deep baritone that draws Hajime’s attention immediately. He’s a portly fellow and the napkin tucked into his top button is speckled with drippings from his diligently-manicured beard. The softness of his appearance is curbed by the sharp cut of his gaze as he zeroes in on Hajime. “ **You've been a quiet one this evening. Cat got your tongue?** ”

Hajime takes only a moment to puzzle over the meaning of the idiom before deciding it pointless anyway. He gets the gist of what the man is implying, probably. “ **I don’t like to run my mouth, sir.** ”

Mr. Edwards pulls a hand across his beard, thoughtful. “ **But you’ve got quite a mouth on you when you do.”**

Across the table, Oikawa nods, Cheshire-cat grin splitting his face almost in half. “ **Oh, you don’t know the half of it, si—** _rrng_!”

Oikawa whips a scowl at Hajime as he reaches a hand down to rub at his bruising shin. Hajime pulls his foot back and pretends to not notice. “ **I’m sorry if I was rude, sir. I didn’t mean to offend anyone.** ”

Mr. Edwards lets out a booming laugh that seems to rattle the table as well as his mortified daughter, whom he gently claps on the shoulder. “ **Of course you didn’t. Now that you’ve caught my attention, though, tell me: what have they got you studying here, sport**?”

Sport? The turn of phrase puzzles Hajime, but he replies as steadily as he can. “ **English, mostly, and Science. The usual subjects as well. It’s a strict curriculum.** ”

“ **And what do you plan to do with those skills**?” Mr. Edwards asks. He sounds nonchalant as he begins buttering up a roll of bread, but Hajime knows better than to let down his guard.

Especially because, well, what _does_ he plan to do? It’s not that the question has caught him off-guard. Truthfully, he feels like he should have at least a dozen prepared answers for this kind of question—the pedigree of Kanagawa Preparatory makes a point of hammering these sorts of things in—but none feel right. Too shallow, too bland. 

Honesty, he figures, is the best policy. “ **I’m not really sure**.”  
  
“ **Not sure**?” the man replies, frowning. “ **That’s a bold statement to make in your position. I’m sure at least half of the young men here would be eager to jump in and list off the reasons I should take them back to England with me instead of you, and you can’t think of one**?”

Mr. Edwards is being deceptively jovial with him. Hajime has to choose his words carefully. He says, “ **You’re probably right. But anything I could have prepared would have been the same, pointless speech we’ve already heard a dozen times tonight. Especially Kawasaki’s. He’s nothing but hot air.** ”

The instructor from before hurriedly chimes in to cut him off before he can do more damage. He’s quick to bring up Iwaizumi’s high scores in all of the English aptitude tests, but Hajime talks over him. “ **I don’t want to give an answer I don’t mean is all, sir.** ”

The man looks at him appraisingly. “ **Then give me the best one you can manage**.”

“ **Well, he’s going, right?** ” Hajime gestures with a nod to Oikawa across the way. Out of the corner of his eye he catches sight of his friend’s eyebrows skyrocketing up. His mouth opens but Hajime quickly digs his heel into his foot before he can make a sound. “ **We all know he’s the best one of us here and it would be stupid of you to pass over him. But I’ll tell you this now, he’s going to be useless without someone around to watch over him.** ”

Hajime’s eyes are hard as he stares deep into Mr. Edward’s eagle-sharp gaze. He lets his gut do the talking. “ **He’ll be one of the best investments you ever make if you take him with you, but he’s self-destructive. Impulsive. Betting on me is a gamble, I know, but I promise that whatever you see fit for me to be, I’ll be it, as long as it means I go with him to keep him in check.** ”

He doesn’t drop his gaze, not even as Mr. Edwards narrows his eyes and pulls a contemplative hand down his beard. “ **You’re a stubborn one, aren’t you?** ”

Hajime nods. “ **My mama always said my dæmon should’ve been a goat like hers.** ”

The room goes silent for an achingly long moment before Mr. Edwards lets out a booming laugh, startling half the table. Even Oikawa’s shoulders jump at the sound. 

“ **You there** ,” Mr. Edwards says, gesturing to one of the servers folded on her knees in the corner. “ **Pour that kid a few fingers of the Springbank. He’s earned it.** ”

One of the instructors translates for the poor girl and then sends her off but Hajime barely notices over the chatter of the table around him. Above all of it, Oikawa is the loudest of them all, even without saying a word. His jaw hangs slack and his eyes are wide and bewildered. His cheeks are ruddy in the most unattractive way.

Hajime rolls his own eyes, but can’t fight the small, proud smirk as he ladles another spoonful of stew and shoves it in his mouth. 

 

 

 

_You are eighteen when you let that old world go._

 

 

 

“If they keep inflating his ego like that, do you think he’ll eventually just…?” Matsukawa makes an explosive gesture with one hand, pulling free one of the buttons of his suit collar and loosening his bow-tie with the other.

“Oh absolutely.” Hanamaki says, inclining his champagne flute towards the ballroom floor. “Not to mention the drinks probably aren’t helping. Over-under on how long it takes?”

Matsukawa tilts his head thoughtfully. “I give him an hour.” Over his shoulder he asks, “How about you, Iwaizumi?” 

Hajime doesn’t spare either of them a glance from where he’s casually bent over the banister. Below, on the central floor of the ballroom, just barely visible over the ring of women surrounding him, is Oikawa. Like Hajime and the rest of the Mission kids, he’s been gussied up in a dark black suit and tie, courtesy of the Montgomery family. His fits him in more than just size. Hajime watches as he laughs and twirls the champagne cork he’d caught (in what Hanamaki had deemed a stupidly excessive display of athletics) between his fingers, much to the delight of his entourage. Disgusting.

With a ragged sigh, Hajime leans further against the railing and swirls his already half-finished glass. “You shouldn’t be encouraging this. Either of you.”

“No, we definitely shouldn’t,” Hanamaki agrees. “But just look at him, all the way down there. Someone would have to fight their way through his gaggle of girls to pull him out, and you certainly don’t look thrilled at the prospect. Too much effort, if you ask me.”

“Agreed.” Matsukawa follows. “Also, that wasn’t an answer to the question, Iwaizumi.”

Iwaizumi takes a long sip from his flute. The carbonation tickles the back of his throat in a way that’s surprisingly not-unpleasant as it goes down, even past the dryness of the champagne. He lets his lips linger against the rim in thought. “Five minutes, tops.”

Hanamaki whistles, eyebrows rocketing up. “Five minutes? What’s with this stunning lack of faith?” 

Hajime shrugs with just the hint of a smirk.

When Hanamaki doesn’t get anything more out of him than that, he lifts the lapel of his suit-jacket to peer inside. He offers a bit of cream off his desert plate to the flying-fox curled up within, then whispers lowly to her. After a moment, he ducks back up and responds, somewhat tartly, “Well Sera and I are going to hedge our bets and say _both_ of you are wrong. I’m calling it now: tomorrow morning we find him sprawled out in some back stairwell, covered in lipstick stains, hickeys, some...  _unmentionables_? Serafina you rascal!” He pauses to listen at his jacket again. “She says puke as well. There _is_ a lot of champagne to be had down there.”

“And so the sheltered caterpillar emerges from his cocoon and becomes the social butterfly he always dreamed of being,” Matsukawa quips.

Hajime hides his skeptical snort behind another long swig of champagne. 

“What, you don’t think so?”

“I _know_ so,” he says pointedly, staring ahead. On the ballroom floor, Oikawa lifts a hand to the back of his head and laughs, loud and nasally. Fiorenza’s ears make a sleek, flat line against her head as the ladies burst into a chorus of giggles. Hajime’s smirk grows full-blown.

Matsukawa joins him at the bannister, giving the scene a lazy once-over. “Alright, suit yourself. Do we still do this in yen or do we switch to shillings? What have you boys got on you?”  
  
Hanamaki grins wolfishly. “Which will get me the best return when I win?”

“Shillings,” Hajime replies.

“Shillings it is, then.”

Matsukawa hums thoughtfully. “What’s a good round number? Ten?”

“As _if_ you have that kind of money.”

Hanamaki’s nose wrinkles. “What’s the conversion on that anyway?”

“Hell if I know.” Hajime replies, side-eyeing Matsukawa. “But I _do_ know it’s a big chunk of pocket-change and you’re a stingy piece of shit who probably wasn’t planning on paying up in the end anyway.”

Hanamaki barks out a laugh. A light chirping from his breastbone suggests Sera is doing the same.

Matsukawa slumps back against the banister and sighs, loud and despairingly. “You wound me, the both of you.”

Hajime downs the rest of his glass. “That’s not a denial.”

“Y’know, I think like you better when you’re half-rats, Iwaizumi,” Hanamaki says as he clinks his own empty glass to Hajime’s. “You’re dryer than the champagne.”

Hajime digs an elbow into his friend’s side and Hanamaki grits his teeth and does the same back. 

“Ah,” Matsukawa extends a finger over his shoulder towards the dance floor, catching their attention and halting the minor scuffle. “We’ve been spotted.”

Hajime peers over. Rising up out above the sea of women is one of Oikawa’s long, lanky arms. Back and forth it sways as his head cranes up to catch their eyes. Even at a distance Hajime can see the enticing waggle of his eyebrows. Down his amber eyes go to sweep over the heads of the girls, then back up to them. He grins, just lopsided and rueful enough to cause the three of them to all sigh out in unison.

“Is he serious?” comes Hanamaki’s voice, baffled, somewhere behind Hajime. “He _can’t_ be serious, the coward!”

He’s overlapped by Matsukawa’s impressed whistle. “Four minutes. Sunovabitch.”

“Told you,” Hajime says around a wry smile as he throws Oikawa the two-fingered salute. A young lady beside him brings a satin-gloved hand to her mouth in shock and Oikawa mirrors her, more facetious than actually offended. Mel chuffs happily as she rises from Hajime’s feet and curls into a stretch, knocking Mami out of her doze with a startled yip. The _tanuki_ glares at her. “Come on.”

Hanamaki’s lip curls up in distaste. “Now _you_ can’t be serious.”

“Don’t be a baby.” Hajime gestures towards Hanamaki’s own empty glass. “You can get that filled up on the way.”

He starts off towards the stairs with Matsukawa beside him. Hanamaki joins, but not without a quiet “Yeah, I’m definitely gonna _need_ it” whispered just loud enough for them all to hear.  


 

* * *

 

An hour later, Ms. Edwards has a hand on Oikawa’s arm and stars in her eyes. On her shoulder, Reginald the tree swallow stretches out his iridescent blue wings and almost clips Oikawa’s ear with the soft-rounded edge of his flight feather. Oikawa, the insufferable flirt that he is, blows a tiny breath at the bird in retaliation. Both Marjorie and Reginald laugh in songbird tones. It takes nearly all of Hajime’s self control to rein in his reflexive snarl before he offends the daughter of his main (no, _only_ ) benefactor.

Matsukawa and Hanamaki are still conspicuously missing, and have been for a while, so there goes that means of escape. Their promise that they’d only be gone for a moment to find a bite to eat had been an obvious lie, even at the time, but it’s not like Hajime can hold much of a grudge. They had seen their opportunity and had taken it, the bastards.

_This was your idea_ , a traitorous voice supplies from the back of his mind. While correct, it doesn’t make it any better. He had been banking on the theory that the women would simply vanish at the sight of them—beady Hanamaki, standoffish Matsukawa, and Hajime himself, hard and sharp at all his edges. At the very least he’d hoped that Oikawa would take the opportunity he’d _seemed_ like he’d been begging them for.

For the most part the plan had worked, but Marjorie Edwards had proven herself to be a persistent little thing.

A waiter surreptitiously plucks the empty flute that had been drooping from Hajime’s champagne-loose fingers and supplies him with a new one. He sneers but takes his blessings where he can, downing a swig of the drink. 

“ **So polite!** ” Oikawa croons as the waiter moves on to him. “ **Iwa-chan, you could stand to learna thing or two from him—** ”

“ **Fuck you.** ”

“— **And that rude mouth of yours is why it would never work out _._** ” He turns to Ms. Edwards and stage whispers, “ **You’d think those were the only two English words he knew with how much he uses them _._** _”_

She laughs, birdsongs again.

_“_ ** _Y_ ou only hear them so much because they’re always directed at you**.”

Oikawa carries on over him. “ **No, that language wouldn’t do for wait-staff. Tell you what: I could always make you my butler instead. Once I’ve made it big in Brytain, of course. Then no one would have to fall victim to that foul language of yours but me. _”_**

Hajime crosses his arms. “ **Yeah, what a favor you’d be doing the world.** ”

Oikawa tuts him with the wag of a finger. “ **Oh, don’t be so sour. I’d be doing you a favor too. We could hide you away before all those angry wrinkles of yours become permanent.** ” He nudges the offending finger into the crease of Hajime’s brow, laughing like a madman as Hajime swipes a hand up to slap it away. ** _“_ You should ask Mr. Edwards if you can keep the suit. It would fit the part perfectly.** _”_

_I came here to rescue you,_ Hajime thinks, not lacking in bite as Oikawa’s grin needles into him. He lifts the glass to his lips to drown out another angry curse.

“ **It _is_ a very nice suit** ,” Ms. Edwards says, suddenly, reminding Hajime of her presence. Her glassy blue eyes sweep down the length of his body and back up to his face with some sort of hawk-like purpose. “ **And, if I may add, it looks much better on you than any butler I’ve known.** ”

Hajime feels himself frown, a puzzled downward tug at his brow and lips. “ **Ah, thank you?** _”_

Oikawa makes a strangled noise beside him, but by the time Hajime has glanced over he looks no more out of sorts than usual. His face had soured a bit, though. “ **What about _my_ suit, Marjorie?** ” he whines, gently laying a hand on her hip until she pulls her hooded blue eyes away from Hajime and back to him. His bottom lip juts out in a wholly unbecoming pout, but there’s a heavy weight to the way he looks at her. 

Marjorie laughs and gently bats at the daring gesture with her own hand. Still, she lets it rest at the crook of his elbow after, white-satin gloves shimmering in the chandelier light. “ **No need to fret. Your suit looks lovely on you as well, darling _._** ”

The aftertaste of champagne turns sour on Hajime’s tongue. He watches as Marjorie reaches up her free hand to tuck a loose strand of hair behind her ear, sees the way she angles her bare neckand trails her fingers down it coyly in Oikawa’s direction as a result. Oikawa’s head tips to the side to match her. 

Hajime knows all-too-well the look in his eyes. Oikawa has always reveled in puzzles and games. Ms. Edwards won’t be the first he’s mastered. 

Hajime also knows how and when to take an exit when it’s given. _Now who needs rescuing?_ a small voice at the back of his hazy mind taunts as he downs the rest of his drink.

“ **Thanks for your time, Ms. Edwards** ,” Hajime loudly interjects, causing Oikawa to startle and look over at him, “ **but I think I need to step outside _.”_** He gives Ms. Edwards a short nod before moving to step back. His heel bumps into something as he does and a startled yelp reveals it to be Fi’s tail. She flicks it back to curl around herself protectively where she’s nestled in the space between Oikawa’s feet, bristling. He shoots her an apologetic glance. She softens, but the angry ruffle of her fur doesn’t go away. Odd.

Maybe it’s the four or five glasses of champagne Hajime’s had in the past hour, but the ground doesn’t feel as even underneath his feet and his head doesn’t feel as light on his shoulders as he backs away.

Oikawa straightens up again to look over, and even with the sudden fog that’s descended over his mind Hajime can still pick out the odd slant to the man’s eyebrows. That’s odd too. Is that curiosity or concern in his expression? Either way, Hajime thanks his lucky stars for the painless exit as he slips out of the way. 

He tries to ignore the equally grateful quirk of Ms. Edward’s smile as he does. He really needs to rid himself of the bad taste still lingering in his mouth.

Walking proves to be more difficult than he’d originally thought it would be. He clumsily sets his empty champagne flute onto a passing waiter’s tray and heads straight for the double doors at the head of the ballroom. The atmosphere inside feels too stuffy all of a sudden, surrounded by all this decadence, and he finds himself craving fresh air. 

But _shit_ , he thinks as the doors swing open at his insistent push, should he have taken her hand before his exit? Kissed it before leaving? What was the proper procedure there? Everything that he’s learned in his Brytish etiquette classes refuses to come back to him now. His brow hardens further as he stumbles over to the railing. Mel noses at his ankles to keep him moving on a straight line (not that she’s doing much better herself).

Schmoozing, he’s learning, isnot one of his strong suits. It shouldn’t come as much of a surprise, in retrospect. He’s never had an easy time playing at things that he’s not. That’s always been more Oikawa’s game, and he can’t even begrudge him of that. Wasn’t that the only reason Hajime was on this ship to begin with? Without Oikawa’s sickeningly saccharine charm to save his ass, wouldn’t he still be bumming around on the shores of _Yamate_ , watching this ship sail off to the West?

Maybe someday he’ll stop riding his friend’s coattails and find his own merits, he thinks. They’re certainly not schmoozing, or flirting, or whatever this fanciful display of opulence is, for that matter. He’ll never stay afloat at this rate.

His stomach lurches. He braces both hands on the ornately carved banister and takes a few steadying breaths. Okay, maybe he’s ready to admit that he’s more than just tipsy. He shakes his head as though to dislodge the haze sticking to each empty crevice of his mind and, once somewhat satisfied, gazes out over the surroundings. 

Above the rotund belly of the airship, moonlight catches the clouds and spins them into pipe-smoke patterns. Further below is the open ocean, churning steadily beneath them. The lights from the airship scatter on the waves like starlight. Tonight is the first of what should be close to a fortnight they’ll be spending aboard the ship. Hopefully there won’t be parties like this _every_ night.

“I don’t think either of us would survive,” Mel says mournfully from where she has her snout poked through the bannister beams. He hadn’t even realized he’d spoken out loud. Apparently the champagne was beginning to stir up his stomach _and_ his mind.

“Pardon me,” he hears someone say beside him in crisp Nipponese. “Is this spot taken?”

Hajime lifts his heavy eyes to find a woman standing to his left. Her silver-blond hair cascades over her shoulder, twining together with the white snake hugging her neck like a string of pearls. 

He drags tired eyes to look over one shoulder to the blatantly empty railing extending out one way beside him, then across to the other side, also markedly empty. One eyebrow hikes up and the sarcasm drips unbidden as he replies, “Are you seriously asking me that?”

Despite this she laughs brightly and drops her elbows against the banister beside him. “I’ll take that as a no.” Her back curves elegantly in the moonlight, and he wills himself to not trace the line of it with his eyes. It’s… somewhat difficult. Mel snorts somewhere at his feet, as if sensing his discomfort. “Would you like to introduce yourself first or should I?” the young woman asks, turning a cat-like eye at him.

Hajime rolls his own eyes and slumps further onto his arms. His mind’s fuzzier than he’d like it to be. All he really wants right now is room to breathe. “Look,” he starts. “I promise, I’m not the best company tonight. You’re better off finding someone else to talk with. Hell, I can point you towards someone I’m _sure_ wouldn’t mind some sweet-talk, if that’s what you’re looking for.”

“Haiba Alisa,” her reply cuts in. “And no, that’s the last thing that I’m looking for, actually.”

Something about that name rings a bell, but his mind is too cottony-thick to figure out why. He’s easily distracted from that thought, however, as Ms. Haiba reaches one hand up to idly tug at her draped sleeve where it droops off her shoulder in a manner that’s obviously meant to catch his eye. 

And catch it it does. His cheeks warm. 

Modesty and all proper manners will him to look away, but then her index finger wiggles in a way that holds his attention. She gestures off somewhere beyond her and he follows the line of her dainty finger to one of the side-doors to the ballroom. There’s a tall, burly man watching the pair of them with crossed arms and a dour expression. 

“Mr. Kuznetsov,” she starts, tone airy but barbed, “has not been the most _pleasant_ companion this evening. I’ve been attempting to find new company for the better part of an hour, but the poor man just _cannot_ seem to take a hint.”

Hajime tears his gaze away from the man’s menacing glare to focus back on Ms. Haiba when the silence stretches too long. He feels like he’s missed something. “Okay?”

She sighs and turns her shoulder to shield them off further from their unwanted company. “Usually I’d rely on _Lyovochka_ to scare away the suitors, but he’s back in Tokyo and my father is cloistered up in talks with the Mæster to hide me away at Royal Bedford, so he’s not exactly available to help either.”

The cotton haze lets up just enough for him to fit the pieces together. “Haiba,” he says, stiffening. “You’re dad’s Haiba Takeaki _,_ the Russian ambas—“

Ms. Haiba’s laughter cuts him off. The snake hisses in what must be an answering laugh where it curls against her collarbone. “Please, you don’t have to prove what a good little schoolboy you are to me. I saw the little speech they gave about you Mission kids before the toast in there.”

Hajime stares at her dumbly, the surprise not yet worn off. He steadies a hand on the railing to keep himself upright because _manners_. He can’t go proving Oikawa right, can he? The thought makes his stomach roil, just briefly. “Sorry, it’s just, I—I shouldn’t’ve been so rude. I mean, I'm supposed to be representing the Mission and you’re a politician’s _daughter_ and—”

“Believe me, it’s not news to me,” she mocks, but her smile assures him its all in good nature.

“Of course, I _know_ , but— _shit_ , _”_ Hajime hisses, then barely bites back another curse as his temples throb. Mel chuffs in laughter at his feet. He brings a hand up to pinch at the bridge of his nose, his face screwing up in humiliation. “Dammit, I’m really sorry. I shouldn’t be… I’m not really at my best right now, Ms. Haiba.”

“Is it all that champagne?” She asks, sounding genuinely concerned. “Of course it is. The first time Mother allowed me to one of these events I spent the whole next day shuttered up in my room in the worst sort of state. For something that tastes so good, it can be a wicked mistress in the morning.”

If he thought his shame couldn’t get any worse, he’s proven wrong as her hand comes up to gently pat at his cheek. He’s sure it feels scorching to the touch. When he tries to gently pull away from her, though, she follows, the hand only moving to slide down to the side of his neck. Hajime decides that there’s definitely something _off_ about this. “Um, Ms. Haiba…?”

She leans into his space, ducking her head down to his ear so that her loose hair tickles his chin. “You still haven’t told me your name.”

He swallows, temples throbbing as all the blood in his body seems to rush to his face. His head swims. “Iwaizumi Hajime.”

“Hajime? What a lovely name. Very proud and strong.” Her fingers dance lightly along the curve of his throat and it’s all just a little too much for Hajime to handle. “Hajime, I’d like to ask you a favor, and know that you can easily say no and I will take absolutely no offense.”

There’s an odd sensation at the back of his neck that he knows from experience means Mel’s hackles are rising. Even Hajime’s champagne-hazy mind can recognize the severity in that. He looks to the one thing he’s almost certain is prompting the reaction and… ah, yes. From his corner, Mr. Kuznetsov is absolutely seething, rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet as though any minute he’ll charge. 

“What is it?” Hajime asks, eyes never leaving the dark cloud in the corner though his senses are swimming. 

Ms. Haiba hums lightly. “Like I said, our friend over there has not left me alone this entire evening and nothing I’ve said to him will deter his unwelcome advances. I mentioned that there was already someone in the picture, but he insisted he needed proof.” At this she leans back, effectively blocking Mr. Kuznetsov off from view again. There’s a flirty cut to her smile, but her eyes are serious when she asks, “Can I kiss you? As his silly proof?”

Hajime’s glad that she provided cover, because he’s sure, as he goes stiff, that his reaction would have given the whole ruse away. 

“What?” he eventually manages to choke out.

“Like I said, you’re free to say no and I can find someone else,” she says hastily. She even sounds flustered herself. “I mean it when I said I have someone else, but, ah… _they’re_ not here right now and I need a cover. Just one simple kiss is all I’m asking for.”

Hajime’s starting to feel the drink more an more by the second, so he _almost_ misses that dodge. Still, it manages to catch his attention in a funny way that feels like it hits close to home for some reason, even though he hasn’t the foggiest idea what that reason is.

Ms. Haiba continues along for him. “If there’s someone else in the picture…,” her eyes dart off of him guiltily.

“There’s not,” he replies, voice coming out strained and reedy. The prickling at the back of his neck intensifies, to his confusion. 

“So…,” she says, eyes wide and pleading and cheeks faintly pink.

“So,” he replies, the word coming out stilted. 

The bubbles that had been rolling through his stomach earlier all seem to have floated up to his head. He tries to think over his options. On the one hand it’s just a stupid kiss. It would be simple and easy and mean absolutely nothing. On the other hand… is there even an other hand? He feels like he should have some kind of objection to this, but her hand is warm on his neck and he’s never been able to resist giving in to large, doe eyes and coy smiles. 

“Sure,” he mutters, casting his eyes to the side and trying to ignore his radiating face. He loosens his shoulders, trying to square himself into something more certain. “If it will get that guy to leave you alone, then fine. Let’s get this over with.”

“Hajime…” Mel’s voice is a low growl at his feet. Her claws pick anxiously into the fabric of his trousers, but he barely registers it.

“That’s not the most flattering way to proposition a lady, Hajime, but I’ll take it.” Ms. Haiba says. Her smile is radiant as she sweeps in to press their lips together.

As far as kissing goes, it’s both exactly what Hajime imagined it would feel like and still wildly unexpected. Her lips, tacky with rouge, pillow against his own as her nose barely brushes his cheek. She lingers there for a moment before pulling back, and just as Hajime thinks that’s the end of that, she swoops back in. 

This time her head tilts further to the side and her lips slot together with his in a way that’s slicker and far more daring than he’d actually prepared himself for. He feels his balance sway as her hand guides him into a more advantageous angle. The breath against his lips is hot and sweet and a little too much for him to process. A wave of dizziness hits him and he reaches a hand over to steady himself at her shoulder, but the memory of sleek, white scales and _taboo_ causes him to falter. The hand falls away dumbly and lands on the curve of her hip instead. A thought occurs to him that they make a perfect mirror of Oikawa’s hand and Ms. Edward’s slim hip from earlier in the evening. Ms. Haiba hums against him, sounding pleased, as vertigo continues to send him reeling.

When she pulls back, her eyes are shining. The flush on her face adds a soft finish to the angles of her cheekbones. There’s a tingle in his lips that he’s not sure is from the kiss or the champagne rushing through him. 

“So,” she whispers, half breathless.

“So?” he responds, equally so.

“Um, Mr. Kuznetsov?” Her eyes dart to the side, drawing his to do the same.

Even though it’s proving hard to focus his vision, Hajime leans ever so slightly to spare an inconspicuous glance over to where the man had been standing. The archway to the ballroom is empty, save for the warm gas lamp swaying above it in the wind. If the gentleman had stuck around long enough to witness their impromptu performance, he certainly hadn’t stuck around to see it end. 

“Gone.”

Ms. Haiba sighs, long and deep. “That is a relief. My next plan would have been to lose him in the crowd inside, but I fear that would have proven difficult, considering…” 

She reaches up a hand and waves it above her head. Hajime’s not exactly sure if she’s referring to Mr. Kuznetsov’s height or her own. He snorts, awkwardly, regardless.

When she drops the hand back down to Hajime’s shoulder with a smile, he becomes instantly aware of his own, still resting on the round swell of her hip. His hand seizes and he makes to pull back, but she leans further into it. 

“Just stay with me like this for a moment longer,” she asks, eyes soft and knowing. “I’m sorry. I’d just like to make sure he’s not still watching us from somewhere else. Wouldn’t want him to catch onto our little ruse.”

Hajime opens his mouth to object, but then closes it. He can’t say no to that look in her eye (familiar) so instead he jerks his shoulders in a curt shrug. “It’s not like I have better places to be.”

A small bit of tension he hadn’t noticed she’d been carrying eases out of her shoulders. There’s a warm sparkle to her gaze when she cocks her head a moment later and lets her arms hang loosely around his neck. “Was that your first kiss, Hajime?”

The coquettish hint of laughter in her voice ( _so_ familiar) immediately causes him to frown and his brow to crease, almost like an instinctive reaction. _Pavlovian_ , his brain supplies from some random corner of tucked-away knowledge. He scowls further. 

She chuckles in response, completely unruffled. “Don’t take offense, dear. I didn’t mean any harm. Purely curiosity.” Her fingers trail idly across his hairline and down the line of his spine.

The worst thing is he knows she’s being honest. “And if it was?”

Ms. Haiba looks delighted. “Now, that’s hard to believe! I’d think a handsome young man as yourself wouldn’t be lacking in company.”

If only. “I’m never _lacking_ in company,” he snorts, “just not _that_ kind.”

“It sounds like there could be a story there.”

Hajime feels his lips lazily slide up at the corners, unbidden. “Too many to count.”

Ms. Haiba’s own smile loosens, looking far less contrived than most of the ones until this point had been. She leans a bit more of her weight on his shoulders and tucks her head against her own tiredly. She feels _soft_. “Tell me one.”

The alcohol is warm in his belly and the feeling has started to spread out through him like molasses. Like Ms. Haiba’s smile, he feels himself loosen as well. 

He tips his head back and stares up at the stars glistening above them. The air bites at his exposed skin as it whips by. He’s so caught up thinking of the right story to tell that he’s surprised when words begin to spill from his mouth on their own. “Before, you said I was smart for being accepted onto the Mission, but I’m not really. I think it’s more that I’m just… stubborn? Or lucky.” He sighs. “It’s gotta be luck, you know? I mean, there are dozens of reasons I shouldn’t be here.”

“I find that hard to believe.”

Hajime lets out a bitter laugh. “I almost got kicked out of Kanagawa Prep once.”

“Oh, horror of horrors,” Ms. Haiba replies dryly.

Hajime hums, brow creasing. “I don’t come from money or privilege, Ms. Haiba. If I’d lost my sponsorship, I don’t know if there was any other place I could go besides back to the fields I grew up in.”

She doesn’t say anything to that, but he hears the guilty whoosh of her breath. At the back of his mind he thinks maybe he shouldn’t have spoiled the mood, but his mouth starts barreling ahead again before he can think on it too hard. 

“And it would have sucked, too, because my whole future would have been gone and none of it was even my fault, y’know? It’s never my damn fault, but I’m always _there_ when shit hits th—sorry, when things go wrong.”

“Ah, so you’re the _loyal_ type,” she says slyly.

He hiccups out a laugh. “To a fault, maybe.”

Ms. Haiba laughs herself, idly carding her fingers through his hair. “If that is your primary character flaw, dear, I would consider yourself very lucky.”

Hajime snorts even as his cheeks warm. He hopes she can’t see it. “It was… October, I think. We were fifteen or something. There was a ship from Amsterdam in town and my friend, he was off on family business. See, he’s from Dejima, originally. He and his sister are wicked smart with Dutch and his father’ll use ‘em to help rake in extra funds wherever the Prince’s Flag flies, y’know?”

She nods knowingly.

“So he says to us—me and our two friends—that there’s this warehouse down by the wharf, and inside there’s all sorts of weird stuff that we _have_ to check out. He knows because he’d overheard the Dutch sailors talking about it and decided he wanted to take a peek, but we’d have to sneak out there after dark while the place was unguarded. And through all of this he refuses to tell us exactly what we should be expecting, so of course I say no—I’m not that much of a dumbass and neither is he. At least, he’s not a big enough dumbass to risk his neck on something so stupid. But then all that did was make him moody. He stormed off before I could get another word in edge-wise.

“So I thought fine, if he was going to be an idiot, I’d leave him to it! But somehow I _still_ wound up at the wharf hours later anyway, waiting for him to show up, because of course I couldn’t let him go at it alone. _Of course_ …

“Anyway, eventually he shows up with the other two at his side, and his _face_ ,” Hajime breaks off with a short, sharp laugh. The spontaneity of it makes him list to the side, but Ms. Haiba’s arms at his shoulders keep him upright. “He tried so hard to play it off, talking up a big game about how he knew I couldn’t resist, but I knew. He thought I’d left him alone. As _if._ ”

He pauses and finds his lips surprisingly dry. His tongue darts out to wet them. The clouds twist like swirls of paint above him. Cotton-wisp trails. Dizzying.

“So?” she asks, tilting her head to the side. Her silver-blond hair cascades down her shoulder. “What was inside the warehouse?”

Hajime peeks down to catch her eye, mouth slid up in a molasses-thick half-grin. “ _Shunga_. Boxes and boxes of the stuff.”

Ms. Haiba inhales sharply, a hand coming up to her mouth to try to stop her laughter. The sound of it tinkles out of her like bells, threading together with the hissing laughter of her dæmon. “You’re _joking_.”

Another barking laugh punches out of him and sends his head back up to the stars. “It was any fifteen-year-old boy’s dream come true. We got through three stacks before the sailors guarding the place noticed. It was all Tooru’s fault in the end, what with that stupid nasally laugh of his.”

Ms. Haiba’s voice is bright with laughter. “How did you manage to get out of that one?”

The sky is a sea of paint swirls by now. Hajime’s laughter trails off into the rushing wind. “I don’t… know?” he admits, head tiredly rocking along his neck with the cradle-swing sway of the boat. “Yeah, I dunno. One of the sailors socked me real good in the cheek as I was shoving one of ‘em out the window. I just took off after that. The next day I hear that some guy from the shipping company had shown up at our school, looking for a kid with choppy hair a’na nasty black eye. I thought that’s it, I’m done for.”

Hajime quiets. Then, after a moment, “I waited _all damn_ _day_ for them to make their way to our classroom, only to find out someone’d already smoothed things over with the guy hours before they could even find me. Somehow.” He sighs, long and weary. “Figures, right? The same brat that gets me into the mess bails me out of it as well. Stupid Tooru. Stupid, _clever_ Tooru.”

“That’s quite an oxymoron,” Ms. Haiba says, dipping her head in close and trailing fingers softly down his spine.

“Yeah,” he mumbles. “Yeah, he is.”

A sharp wolf-whistle cuts through the air, causing both Hajime and Ms. Haiba to startle.

“Iwa-chan, you _dog_!” a familiar voice calls out. 

Hajime lowers his head from the clouds, but it feels heavier than usual, so it lolls a bit on the way down. He has to blink a few times before the tuft of brown across the way comes into focus. “To— _Oikawa_?”

The man himself is framed in the lamplight above the ballroom doorway. His hands fall from where they’d been cupped around his steel-trap grin and he all but skips over to the two of them. “What in good heavens is _this?_ ” he asks, gesturing up and down at the pair of them.

“I…,” Hajime says, blanking. Now that he’s stopped talking, getting his mouth to start up again feels like it takes all kinds of new effort. The words are syrup-thick on his tongue.

Belatedly he thinks of his hands on Ms. Haiba’s hips. He should move them, but then where would his balance go if not on a one-way trip down to the deck? That would be bad. He frowns, staring down at the dark swath of his skin against where he’s anchored himself to the crisp white of her dress. It’s such a funny contrast. Tan and white, white and tan.

“–jime?”

He blinks, dragging his eyes back up to Ms. Haiba’s. Man, are they _green—_ greener than his own, even. Everything else about her is so porcelain pale but her _eyes_. Did he not notice them before? It seems impossible. Mesmerizing, like ocean waves and sea—

“—glass,” he mutters, tasting rouge on his teeth. 

The green flickers away as she blinks, brow creasing. “Oh dear.”

“Oh dear _indeed_ ,” Oikawa parrots. Hajime can hear his shoes tap-tap-tapping and Fiorenza’s claws click-click-clicking against the wood of the deck as they get closer. “Looks like someone’s reached their limit.”

“Fuck you,” Hajime slurs. He pulls his hands away from the magnetic draw of Ms. Haiba’s hip and reaches to get a grip on the rail behind him. He misses, fumbles for it again, manages it on the third try. “I’m fine.”

Oikawa’s face ducks into his line of sight, cutting Ms. Haiba off from view. His eyes are practically _brimming_ with delight at either end of his Cheshire Cat smile. “Just so you know, I’m absolutely tucking this memory away for future reference.”

“I’ll pummel it outta you,” Hajime sneers.

“Nope. Sorry, but it’s already been sent to the presses. The newsies in Brytain will be hollering about this one for weeks.” He spreads his hands out in mock-quotations. “‘Iwaizumi Hajime: Already Intolerable, Also Alcohol-Intolerant!’ Someone should hire me, I’m a _natural_ at this.”

Hajime tries to throw a punch at the bastard’s shoulder, but the shot doesn’t land quite right. He grazes his knuckles along the silky-smooth lapel of his suit coat, but with nothing to stop the momentum he lurches forward. Warm hands catch him at the shoulders. 

“Careful there,” comes Oikawa’s voice again, only this time it’s pitched down much too low, much too soft for Hajime’s brain to fully catch up with. His words smell like champagne. The breath of them tickle across his ear and he shivers.

“I think this is where I should take my leave,” Ms. Haiba’s voice interrupts, amusement glistening in her sea-foam eyes when Hajime catches them over Oikawa’s shoulder.

Like a coiled spring, Oikawa ricochets back, all of the soft edges from before long gone. He arches his neck and one slick eyebrow to look at her. “I’m sorry, who are you again?”

“Haiba Alisa,” she says, lips pressed in an artful smile. 

Oikawa hums an appraising note. “Ah, the politician’s daughter. Iwa-chan, you managed to bag one of the important ones!”

“Don’t be’n ass,” Hajime hisses. It comes out muffled against the slick softness of Oikawa’s coat. When had he set his head down there?

“Well, seems like you both had an enjoyable night,” Oikawa chirps. “I _certainly_ hope I didn’t interrupt anything.”

“Of course not,” Ms. Haiba says. “We had a lovely chat, but I’m glad to see him back in capable hands.”

Hajime can’t help the snort that bursts out of him. It, too, is muffled by Oikawa’s lapels. He can almost imagine the frown on Oikawa’s face in the short pause that follows. It’s Oikawa’s _best_ face. The haughty one that he thinks masks his childish pout. It really doesn’t.

“Well,” he hears Oikawa start, “I only wish you hadn’t turned him over to me in such a sorry state.”

Ms. Haiba laughs, her dæmon hissing away in harmony. “Whoever’s fault that was, it wasn’t mine, I assure you. We shared a few things tonight, but alcohol wasn’t one of them.”

At the playful tone of Ms. Haiba’s voice, Hajime feels his cheeks begin to burn. His tongue feels too big for his mouth and he swallows thickly. Whatever expression he must be making must be an _awful_ one, because her laughter only grows. 

Oikawa’s shoulder shifts as he no doubt twists to see. Hajime stubbornly turns it away and only further into the fabric. Maybe that’s even more incriminating. Who knows. 

“But as I said,” Ms. Haiba continues, her laughter petering off. “It’s getting late. I’ll leave him here in your charge.”

Hajime’s head darts up, clipping Oikawa’s chin (which earns him a muttered curse). He attempts to push himself up and away, but the world seems to spin under his feet when he does. He steadies a hand back on Oikawa’s broad shoulder, unthinkingly. 

“But Mr. Kuzzu… Kuztens…,” he tries to work around the Russian syllables, but his tongue feels like a lead weight. 

“Mr. _Kuznetsov,_ ” she supplies, barely hiding the second round of laughter, “hasn’t shown his face since his mysterious disappearance, so I should be able to slip off to my room undisturbed.”

Hajime grunts, brow furrowed. “I could walk with you.”

This time she does laugh again, but not in mockery. Even his fuzzy brain can pick up on that. She reaches a hand over to gently rest on his bicep, smile fond. “I’ll be fine, really. You’ve played your part for the night. Thank you.” 

With that she turns to Oikawa, standing off to the side with his nose turned up in the air. “Your friend here was like a knight in shining armor to me tonight,” she says to him. “You’re lucky to be in such excellent company.”

“It must be the alcohol.” Oikawa says with a shrug. “You should hear the mouth on him when he’s sober.”

“Perhaps,” she replies. “Treat him kindly, won’t you? I’m sure tomorrow morning won’t.” 

Oikawa meets her grin with his own, sharp at the corners. “Oh, I’m counting on it.”

Hajime is about to retort when his head is turned to the side by a gentle hand. “It was lovely meeting you. Best of luck in Brytain.”

She looks like moonlight, silver elegance and all. He nods. “You too. G’night, Ms. Haiba.”

She smiles. “Goodnight, Hajime.”

With that, Haiba Alisa steps back and melts back into the night.

 

* * *

 

“—but then there was this guy n’the doorway. Mean looking bastard… with tiny, beady eyes. Nasty.”

“Are you sure it wasn’t a mirror, Iwa-chan?”

“Oh, piss off.”

For how busy the party had been, the ship’s deck is an absolute ghost town. At least, it seems like it is. He doesn’t think he hears anyone else walking by, but slumped over with his eyes trained diligently on his feet, it’s not like he can see anyone to confirm. He’d forgotten how _big_ the damn ship was until now, now that they have to make their way to the opposite end of the thing before he can properly catch his bearings. 

One foot in front of the other, he keeps reminding himself in a hazy mantra.

“I take back what I told that girl before,” Oikawa sniffs. “You’re mouth is just as awful when you’re drunk as when you’re not.”

“Only t’you.”

Oikawa sighs, dramatic and overblown. “Yes, _only_ to me! What _ever_ did I do to deserve this kind of treatment, huh?”

Hajime snorts, then stumbles with the punching impact of it. Oikawa swoops in to catch him, only faltering a bit himself. If he’s drunk too, he’s much better at reining it in than Hajime. Bastard.

“Haiba Alisa,” Hajime says as Oikawa rights him back onto his shoulder.

“Hm?”

“Her name.”

Oikawa hums absently.

“She was nice.” Hajime mumbles, head lolling back down. Then, before he can even think to stop himself, “And her mouth was really soft.”

Something in Oikawa hitches, catching Hajime’s attention because he’s so _close_. 

But it’s just a shrug, one meant to pointedly hoist Hajime further up. “Her mouth was _soft_? That’s what you have to say?”

Hajime scrunches up his face. “Th’ fuck else ‘m I _supposed_ to say?”

Oikawa sputters. “What else—? I can’t believe what a caveman you are. You’re supposed to–I mean, it’s _better_ if it’s more…,” he trails off, “…not _that_. More eloquent! Poetic!”

Hajime mulls over that thought, watching his feet move forward one step at a time. “Then what would _you_ say?”

Oikawa seems to roll that idea around before answering with, “That depends.”

Hajime looks up at him, sideways. “Ha. Yeah, you have _tons_ of practice with that, huh?”

Oikawa lets out a long, exasperated sigh. Every part of him swells and sags with the action. Hajime sways along with him. “Yes, yes, get it out of your system. Pick on poor, popular Tooru when he’s lending you a hand, I see how it is! Goodness, what kind of bad karma did I earn in a past life to get stuck with such a grouchy old man?”

“ _You’re_ stuck with _me_?”

Oikawa lets out a haughty sniff. “Obviously.”

“Well you’ve only got yourself to blame for that.”

“Ah ah ah,” Oikawa says, enunciating each syllable. “I see what you’re up to and you won’t be rid of me that easily, Iwa-chan. I’m big on superstition and like it or not, you’re my lucky charm.”

The sudden rock of the boat makes Hajime’s head swim. As his stomach sloshes, so does a laugh, purging out from his mouth. It’s an ugly, rasping thing aimed straight down at the deck. “ _Lucky charm_?”

He has to wait for a long second or two before Oikawa responds, drawn out and questioning, “Yes?” Hajime can hear the frown in his tone.

Up bubbles another laugh. It tastes rotten as it spills out of him. Behind his eyelids he sees afterimages: fancy tableware, satin gloves, half-filled champagne glasses.

“Bullshit,” he slurs. “You were born with luck spilling outta your ass, you prick. _I’m_ the lucky charm? _Ha_.”

Their steady pace stops. “Iwa-chan?”

“Please,” Hajime hiccups, swallowing down the taste of bile. The floor rolls under his feet. “ _You…_ you were always gonna show ‘em hell, Shittykawa. _You’re_ the fucking golden-child. _I’m_ ju–…. _just—“_

Hajime’s stomach lurches. Vaguely he notices that they've stopped moving. His stomach heaves once, twice, but nothing comes. Everything feels vile. 

After who knows how long, the world comes back in hazy snippets. The faint sound of a stuffy waltz. A sour tang clinging to his tongue. Solid weight under his palm and a cool hand pressed to his forehead. Like pieces of a puzzle, they come together.

The only thing off is the silence. Hajime is vaguely aware that they’d been talking, but what had it been about? He can’t really place it, all of a sudden. He expects Oikawa to fill the void, anything at least, but nothing comes. Just silence. 

Ah, at one point they must have started moving again, but Hajime doesn’t have the faintest idea when. One foot after another. That’s an easy enough rhythm to follow. Oikawa remains oddly and uncharacteristically tight lipped the whole while. 

Hajime frowns at the deck, counting his footsteps. From somewhere far below them, the sound of the ocean is a steady white noise. 

Well, if it’s so eager to fill in the silence for them, then so be it.

Eventually, they reach the cabin door. He assumes so, at least, because their footsteps stop abruptly and he hears the sound of a key rattling along its metal ring. Hajime opens his eyes to the carpeting. When had he even closed them in the first place? He only has a second to marvel at the carpet pattern before Mel knocks into his leg and Oikawa’s palm at his neck ( _warm_ ) shimmies him along through the door. 

He stumbles forward on his own as Oikawa lingers behind. The gas lamp on the far side of the room flickers to life and Hajime tries to make sense of the surroundings among the dim shadows. He spots the bunks in the corner, his worn, second-hand suitcase still perched at the foot of the bottom one. Nothing sounds better to him at that moment than the bed’s warm, beckoning call. He stumbles over and falls into it willingly. For once, he’s glad Oikawa had wheedled and whined his way into getting the top bunk.

When he closes his eyes, the world stops spinning just a little, so he lets them fall shut. The ship shifts ever so slightly in the wind, rolling him with it until his back is flush with the wall. It’s soothing in a way, but no, he doesn’t really want to sleep. Not just yet, anyway. Instead, he listens intently for Oikawa as the boy moves through the room. He hears the click of Oikawa’s suitcase fastenings and the shuffle of clothes. He wants to look, but his eyelids are too heavy and the bed is too warm. A sudden shiver runs through him as he curls against it. Maybe it had been colder out there than he’d thought. 

The mattress dips suddenly. At first he thinks it might be Oikawa, which causes his heart to thud arrhythmically in his chest all of a sudden, but the weight distribution is all wrong. Also he’s pretty sure he’d heard the bathroom door close just a moment ago. He blearily peels one eyelid open to find Mel crawling up beside him. Not far behind her trails Fiorenza, long tail swooshing and throwing dim shadows along the wall. 

She’s so pretty, Hajime thinks, as he watches her curl together with Mel in the empty space beside him. Not that Mel isn’t—she _is—_ but Fiorenza is beautiful in a different way. Mel is… round. Soft. There’s a smoothness to the curve of her snout, and a warmth in her eyes that Hajime falls in love with every time he looks at her. 

But Fi, though. There’s something enticing about the sleek cut of her body. It’s like she’s… slippery. Is that the word? Doesn’t seem like it. It’s just that when he looks at her, it always feels almost like she’d slip right through his fingers if he reached for her, like a shadow or a mirage. Like Dust.

_Would she really?_ he suddenly finds himself wondering. His fingers scratch against the duvet.

Mel shifts, the white stripe along the crest of her head catching the warm glow of the gas lamp. This is okay, he thinks, as his index and middle fingers reach out to trace the line of it. This is safe from the ever-lingering weight of taboo. She is his and he’s hers.

He starts at the dip of his dæmon’s snout. Then he follows it along the curve of her brow, down the slope of her neck, across the start of her spine where the white fades to grey. She arches into it as he breathes out. 

Grey, so grey. 

And then there’s Fi, a different shade of grey. Grey against grey in gradients.

Mel shifts again. Fi’s chin dips down and settles easily along her hindquarters. She nuzzles into the softness of Mel’s flank and chirps.

Are they usually this affectionate with each other? He wonders.

Hajime lets his palm lay flat on the round plane of Mel’s belly. Fi’s breath is warm and wet against his fingers. She’s staring at him, he slowly realizes, brown eyes soft and searching.

Inhale, exhale. He does the same.  A thought comes to him, unbidden. 

_It would be easy to reach out, wouldn’t it?_

Suddenly, he feels 9 years old again. It’s a strange thought. He thinks about handprints welting on faces. Red handprints. Red-ringed eyes. Red string. Fiorenza’s burnt red fur, buried deep within the grey.

He feels sick to his stomach. It’s not because of the alcohol.

_ Grey, grey, grey. _

Still, his fingers itch, like cicadas buzzing under his fingertips.

_Yes, it would be so easy._

Mel breathes in, and his hand slips further down her back, closer still.

_So very easy._

And oh, he thinks, Fi is _right there_ —

The bathroom door clicks open. “Iwa-chan?” he hears, soft as the lamplight.

 

…and there’s that word again, _soft_. The room lighting, the duvet, Mel’s fur. Fiorenza’s eyes. His own thoughts, even.

 

 

Miss Haiba’s lips had been soft. Oikawa’s voice is too, murmuring his name again.

 

 

 

 

The hand that comes to lie across his forehead, carding through his sweat-slicked bangs, is also soft.

 

 

 

 

 

                                          Everything is so _soft_. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And it’s so very easy to just slip right into it—that _softness._

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So he does.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Off to the West! Fun fact: that scene with Alisa was one of the first things I thought of for this fic and was some of the most fun I've had writing this.
> 
> Thank you to everyone who's been following this so far, or who has joined along the way! The good news is that I have had the entire ending to this (all 7000 words of it) written out and I've had it that way for months now. The bad news is that the chapter that's gotta go between this and that is still in the works. Professional life has been taking priority, but I have all the ideas in place and I just need the time and inspiration to get them down. Every lovely comment or kudos I've received so far has been a big motivator to do so, so thank every one of you for the support!
> 
> As always, comments & kudos very much appreciated, either here or over at [my tumblr](http://devicing.tumblr.com). See you in the next chapter!

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to ask any questions about this AU in the comments or over at my [tumblr](http://devicing.tumblr.com)!


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